Trust
by Darkraven3441
Summary: Daemon had never had a good relation with a particularly acid Raccoon. But he can't blame him, for he has reasons to be a bit closed to himself. But when both are stuck together and one gets wounded, things need to change...
1. Memories

**Quick note: Daemon Pierce is my Character, inserted in the original plot of the GOTG movie. He's a very skilled Doctor and knife-thrower. He was in Kyln with Drax when he met with the guardians and escaped alongside them. He had been arrested for slaughtering a whole clan of criminals and outlaws, known as the Burst Gang, apparently for no reason. That's what he tell people anyway, his story goes a bit deeper but I won't be telling it fully on this fiction. Just keep in mind that the guardians don't know anything from his past but what his reputation gave him. The slaughtering left him insane and got him the title across the galaxy of "Crazy Doctor", or C. Doc for short.**

**He was mentally treated but never fully healed, as he managed to trick his psychologists to think he was fine. He won a reputation inside the prison by treating the wounded and sick, since the medical team was too lazy to care about the inmates. Eventually he joined the Guardians as their Personal Medic and friend.**

**Also, note that this is my first ever written Fanfiction, I have never went to any English grammar classes since it's not my first language. So, if you choose to review, please don't be afraid to correct anything I might have missed or written wrong, and please be patient with my lack of creativity for some things. **

**Hope you enjoy it…**

Daemon was grasped out of his thoughts by a knock in the door.

"Companion, are you ready? We'll be landing in a few hours; friend Quill is awaiting us in the Cockpit."

"Comin' Drax, just grabbing some stuff here. I'll meet you guys there"

He heard the footsteps of Drax getting away and allowed himself to let out a small smile, coming back to think while organizing his things. He had more in common with the scarred red man than he ever told anyone. Of all the Guardians, Drax were the first he had contact with, and despite his lack of sarcasm and metaphors sense, he was still a very loyal and trustful friend.

In fact, they all were somewhat. They didn't have to be chatting all the time about their problems and such to understand each other. Much like with Groot… Nobody but Rocket understood whatever the tree-man was trying to say, but the time they had been together allowed them all to interpret some of Groot's quotes, mostly by his tone or facial expressions (Which were kind of hard to understand, considering his whole face was made of wood).

He frowned his eyebrows by the mention of Rocket. He was a terran himself, but he had never lived in terra, therefore having no clue at all of what a Raccoon should look like, and wasn't really surprised by seeing one walking around in two-feet and talking, until Quill had told him how it was actually supposed to be. Seeing the implants on the companion's chest confirmed his suspicion that he had been enhanced as Gamora was, but in Rocket's case, as a wicked experiment, not a weapon.

The raccoon did not like him a bit when they first met and he still didn't, Daemon figured. Probably because he looked too much alike the people that experimented on him back at his past. At the battle of Xandar, Rocket refused to be treated by anyone and that included Daemon, even though he was the one that gave him the vase to put Groot's splinter. The raccoon ended up treating himself, which lead to a quite funny scene where the bandages around his arms and the gauze on his eyebrow wound (Courtesy of when Ronan pushed him away with his hammer) were constantly falling, forcing the Raccoon to fix them multiple times. Even like that he didn't let anyone help, so they decided to let it go.

3 months since that and Rocket's still had not shown any sign he would let himself being touched or trusting Daemon. Which decided the Raccoon would be ready when he would.

As for Quill, he had being the extreme opposite or Rocket's acid behavior around him. Daemon had a good voice, and was often singing the lyrics of both Awesome Mix Vol. 1 and 2 as Quill danced around the room, usually holding a beer, causing laughs to come from all the other Guardians, especially Gamora.

Quill was very kind and so was Daemon back at him, they quickly found after so many bar fights that his "stupid father's blood", as he had called it, had a small regeneration factor. Quill added that he also thought it was strange back at the time he was a ravager, but he figured it was just his "very healthy state". He said that with a smile on his face which they all understood he was talking about the large quantity of girls he was bringing to his ship at the time. After having all the Guardians living around the Milano he said he would respect everyone else private space and wouldn't be bringing anymore girls into the ship (He would still go after them though). But everyone figured it was more because of Gamora really…

Gamora… Daemon enjoyed her company around the ship. She was brave, smart and overall kind as well. But she still carried that sad look upon her face, marked permanently for her troubled and painful past.

Daemon didn't take long to realize her cybernetics caused her an extreme pain. She was most often putting her hands on her arms and clutch her fingers around it very tightly, biting the bottom of her lip was also a sign of what she was feeling. Daemon left some painkillers on her desk with a small note telling about the doses. She thanked him softly one day and that was it. He wasn't going to mention this to the other Guardians, and Gamora was grateful for that. She wouldn't like to be seen like someone to feel sorry for…

Beyond that she was the Guardian's soul, doing everything she could ever do to protect and care about her friends. She even danced with Quill one day, but she was quite embarrassed so nobody brought up the subject again with, under the threat of cutting one's finger.

As for Groot, the Tree-man had recovered very well considering his full destruction. The little splinter on the Vase had grown a lot in small amounts of time. Groot wasn't at his full size, according to rocket, but he was already as tall as Quill. And double the energy. Rocket had been very protective around him in the first month, and was still trying to prevent him to do anything, afraid he would be hurt again. It took a long discussion between both until Rocket felt safe enough (Not entirely though) to let him participate of the general movement around the Milano.

Daemon shook his head to come back to the real world. Where the hell did he put the G-Agent #25…?

He found them in a drawer on the balcony. The Medbay was full of medical equipment, including 4 beds, some monitors, a conservation fridge and other things.

It wasn't actually a Medbay until Daemon had arrived. Quill wasn't using the room for anything; it was more of a guest-room. Nova had given him a lot of equipment and medicines, including sedatives, painkillers in general and antidotes. Despite that he went around Xandar to buy some things (most of them not entirely legal) he knew Nova wouldn't be providing him with, including some furniture. He organized everything inside and shortly they had an improvised, yet very functional, Medbay.

Daemon was overall organized, but sometimes even he forgot where he put his things, which lead to long periods of "Where is this?" "Where is that?" while walking around the room in circles. He finally finished packing up everything he thought he would need in a small shoulder-bag and grabbed his coat, a white and black cloth with internal pockets to store his throwing knives. He put some more knives, some with slots for poison, in his belt and left the Medbay heading for the Cockpit.


	2. Missing

**Note: Thanks for the support on the last chapter; it means a lot to me! Just wanting to warn that the Guardians call Daemon "Doc" or sometimes Pierce. Just for you to know if you bump in these terms. Enjoy this chapter!**

The cockpit was very quiet, as Quill was waiting to start talking about the mission at hand.

Everyone's head turned as Daemon entered the room, mumbling a small "Hey guys" before taking his place in his chair. There were 6 in total, one for each one of them. Quill had asked Nova to add 2 more seats so they could all sit at the same time. It was kind of rare though, since while in combat some were piloting or using the attached ship guns (Rocket's place) the others were walking around the ship for repairs or even boarding the attacker's for a quick and efficient takeout.

Daemon acted as the field medic, so he was one to be following everyone around, but he could take care of himself easily. In these past months they had been attacked sometimes and in one of these situations he split off the group to take out the ships power supply while the others were cleaning the rest of the room. One of the aliens on the ship followed him and though he was an easy target.

When the Guardians went after him him they found the alien body lying on the floor with 6 knives coming out of his chest. And the power supply cables ripped apart. Daemon was scavenging the rest of the ship in search for anything worthwhile.

Quill made a discreet "aham" to draw their attention.

"Today's a simple one. Dey told me they were having uncommon readings on the surface of Marged – Z" - He pointed at the greenish small planet outside – "It's mostly a resource planet controlled by Nova, but they believe some thugs managed to land and are conducting illegal extraction of the planet's resources, even though the signal is coming from the opposite of the planet's mines, built by Nova. The planet itself is covered with forests and jungles, including some dangerous animals and such, so be careful when walking around it."

"What kind of dangerous animals EXACTLY Quill?" – Asked Gamora

"Funny thing, I have no Idea! Nor does Nova apparently, they just told us to be careful when operating inside the planet, and I think we should follow their advice"

"If there's a particularly plant or bug that is poisonous I need to know. It's not that easy to synthetize an antidote when you're not prepared for whatever it was the source of it." – stated Daemon

Rocket left out a provoking, yet soft chuckle. Like he didn't feel it was important.

Daemon thought: "Typical"

"As I said, Nova didn't give me details. So I guess we'll need to have extra-care in this case."

Daemon nodded, still concerned but satisfied.

"Alright, we'll be landing in about an hour. Enjoy the time to get whatever information or piece of equipment you might need. That's it for now."

They all scattered around to take care of their affairs. Only Rocket and Quill stood in the cockpit.

"Hey Quill"

"Yeah Rocket?" – Answered Quill as he started playing "Cherry bomb" on his music player

"What do you think of Pierce?

Quill lowered the volume of the player, caught a bit off guard by the question.

"I think he's fine. I've lost count the times he helped me around, he's good in what he does. Why? Is something wrong?"

"I don't like him…"

Quill lifted an eyebrow

"… At all." - Rocket completed

"What's that all of sudden? Did he do something that bothered you?"

"No… I just don't trust him."

"You trust me?" – Quill asked

Rocket stared at him with a questioning look.

"You're still a huge idiot, but I suppose so…"

"So there's nothing to worry, he's fine." – He hesitated – " Are you sure you're not letting your past blur your vision Rocket?"

Rocket's ears and tail flinched a bit; Quill knew that was a sign of the Raccoon's defensive state coming up.

"Maybe, but you would too if all you knew for freaking years was the look of coated scientist that came around, and all you could think when seeing them was what kind of crazy experiment and pain you would be put into. AND AFTER THAT PUT INSIDE A COLD CAGE LEFT ALONE TO WHIMPER IN THE DARK WAITING FOR EVERYTHING TO HAPPEN AGAIN." – He said that last words in an angry voice, but Quill detected a bit of pain on his tone.

"Rocket…"

Rocket stood quiet for a bit, turning his face the other way.

"Sorry… I just need to be alone for a moment"

Quill was reluctant in walking away, but he agreed anyway. Silently leaving the raccoon to his own thoughts.

Rocket stared out through the window with a sad look

It's not like he chose the things that happened to him in the past, but they had anyway and he couldn't erase that. He clutched his claws around his arms and pushed his tail up the chair, forming a protective position he had done so many times in his dark memories. He did like the Guardians, they were his family now… He was so afraid to be alone when Groot had "died" that he almost forgot about the other people that cared about him.

But Daemon was another story… His way of walking, talking… His coat… It was too much for Rocket to handle. The first time he saw him using all his equipment he almost shot him in the face. If it wasn't for Quill standing on the way things could have gone horribly wrong. His picture was exactly what Rocket remembered of the scientists.

On the other hand, he had never been angry or rude with him. Rocket was actually quite surprised when he brought a vase for Groot. And he kind of regrets being so mean sometimes, but he tries not to think about it and just let it roll. The "no touch" paranoia wasn't exclusively Daemon's fault. He didn't like being touched by anyone except Groot… Unless he voluntarily chooses to do so (in most cases, clawing whoever provokes him). And everything that involved medical terms scared him… Even simple ones like "Stitching" or "Doses".

He would never admit it though.

Rocket had too much pride to admit he was wrong, scared or needing help. And that was a very dangerous part of the raccoon, since it could put his life into risk. That never happened though.

His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden, yet very welcome call.

"I am Groot"

Rocket turned to see his long life friend standing on the hallway with a concerned look on his face.

"Hey Groot, what's up?"

"I am Groot"

"Oh… You heard…"

Rocket turned his face again to look through the window. They stood there for a few minutes before Groot breaking the silence

"I am Groot?"

"I'm fine, was just a bit startled that's all."

"I am groot."

"Didn't look like it? What DID it look like then?"

"I am Groot"

"Geez, you too? I just don't like him, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't like me either. Can't you guys just leave me to my own opinion?

"I am Groot"

"So what if we've been together for some time? He knows nothing about me."

"I am Groot"

"I freaking know he murdered a whole criminal gang for fun and that, as far as I'm concerned, is all I need to know. That profile fits perfectly the kind of those scientists on that freaking lab."

"I am Groot"

Rocket hesitated

"I suppose he isn't… What are you trying to say here Groot?"

"I am Groot"

"Look, I just don't feel comfortable around him. I'm harsh because I don't want to be close to him and that's all. Just respect my thoughts for god's sake."

Groot decide to leave it, the raccoon would obviously not be changing opinion anytime soon.

The hour went by as they landed in a small clearing of the planet's forest, a bit far from where they received the signals so they could sneak in.

"Alright, keep your eyes peeled, we don't want to be caught off guard" – Quill said that while putting his headphones on.

"Friend Quill, I don't think preventing yourself from hearing sounds with your device matches with the advice you just said."

"Wha..? Oh... Right…" He took the phones off and placed them in his "Purse".

"We could head for a bar in Verast-96 after that, huh Quill?"

Gamora rolled her eyes

"No doubts… I'm feeling thirsty already" – The planet was bathed by two suns, and they all were feeling the heat.

"The sooner we finish this the faster we'll get there, so let's focus to the matter at hand, alright?" – Gamora stated

"Can't blame us for dreamin'" – Rocket said with a small grin.

"Flora Marvilious, Exivenmous, Mistar Terialys… I'm no Botanic, but this place has a lot of different medicinal plant species. No wonder Nova uses it as a resource planet."

"Seen any poisonous yet Doc?" – It was Quill

"Some, but none of them were lethal. Yet be careful, this baby here, for instance, could make you sleep for 48 hours straight" – Stated holding a red and brown flower in his hands.

To everyone's surprise, he moved his hand to his mouth and ate the flower.

"The hell…?" – Said Rocket with a confused look on his face.

"I am Groot"

"It's okay; I'm immune to 98% of every known poisons and substances across the galaxy."

"Why would you eat it then?" - Drax questioned

"It's sweet beyond measure" – Said with a smile

They moved on through the woods for about an hour, Quill leading and Groot watching their rear. They eventually reached the source of the signal in a small clear part of the florest.

There was no sign of anyone, but there was a strange large metal arc with some mechanical parts attached to it, including a large battery and a control panel. Other than that the clearing was pretty much empty.

The Guardians walked slowly through it and scattered around the device.

"What is it Rocket?"

"Dunno' Gamora, let me give it a look"

They watched as the raccoon started detaching the cables and analyzing them, he had barely started when his ears twitched. His head moving around in a focused state, before saying:

"Guys…"

They all understood right in time, otherwise the shots would have killed every single one of them.

They all dodged the blasters coming from the woods, with guns in hand they started shooting and fighting back.

"Split up! It'll be harder for them to hit us if we're not together. Rocket, try to find what's the machine, we'll cover you." – Quill shouted sending blaster shots against their attackers."

Gamora and Drax quickly dived into the woods and Quill stood between them, preventing the armored thugs from shooting them in the back. Daemon stood back with Rocket sending knives throughout the bushes, not missing even a single one.

"How long?" – Gamora shouted back to Rocket

"I'M WORKING ON IT" – Yelled him back before pressing a button on the panel.

Rocket looked deeply as numbers and images started showing up on the small screen.

"Guys! I know what it is! It's a Tel…" – He couldn't finish his phrase as a bullet went through the panel and hitting the battery, barely missing Rocket.

The device started producing sparks and a horrible burnt smell started to spread across the clearing.

It was also producing an increasingly loud shrill noise…

Peter only had time to say two words.

"GET DOWN!"

The device blew up sending an energy blast across the place, blasting the trees around it and barely hitting Quill. It continued to send small explosions for about a whole minute…

After some time everything went silent and the Guardians slowly stood up.

"Is everyone okay?" – Quill shouted, cleaning his clothes – "Damn, I might need some patching up Doc." – Added him noticing the red bruise that was forming on his arm.

"I'm fine, but I can't say the same about these thugs." Gamora said kicking the body of one of them, who was hit by the explosion."

"At least it saved us some work. What did you say the blowing-killer-device was again Rocket?"

No answer

"Rocket?" – Quill started looking around

But there was no sign of Daemon nor Rocket…


	3. Far away

**Hey, hey! Update :D**

**Sorry it took too long, I went on a trip for the weekend and couldn't post the chapter, but it doesn't matter because its ready;**

**I made this very long because I'll be working on something else for the week. But I'll be updating it by the end of it (probably xD).**

**Oh, and I've changed the rating to M because I was in a need to write bad stuff and details. ;P**

**Anyways, enjoy this chapter.**

"It happens, it wasn't your fault"

"But… I couldn't do it! I couldn't save him!"

"Death is something you'll encounter very often. You need to be strong so it doesn't reach the ones you care about. But when you fail, take it as a learning experience so it never happens again…"

Daemon slowly opened his eyes slowly… Blinked twice to get used to the lightning as the memories of what had just happened started to fill his mind.

He sat, with a hand on his head. The blast had really got him badly… He started touching himself for any possible wounds.

No broken ribs, good

Some slight burns on his arm, none of them serious though. Perfect.

Arms, Legs… No.

"Great, my luck strikes again."

When he put his right hand on the floor to get up he felt a pinch coming up his arm. He looked at his hand.

"Just what I needed…" – His pinky was turned in a very weird angle, looking like someone had glued it wrong.

He grabbed it, took two deep breaths… And pulled.

It snapped with an audible sound. Daemon held a small moan while moving all his fingers up and down to see if he had done it correctly.

Luckily he did.

He sighed and slowly stood up, starting to look around.

He recognized it from the pictures Nova had sent them; he was in the mining site. There were machines and small compounds scattered around the place. Holes with some vertical stairs were dug across the ground. Some bigger than others. He figured they were mineral excavations, even though there were also some underground mine doors on his left.

He turned around and was surprised to found a device similar to the one they found on the clearing, which was weird because it had obviously blown up to pieces. Yet all it was doing now was sparking in some places;

"Guys, you there?" – He shouted, not very loud though.

No answer, the Guardians were nowhere to be found and also, for his sadness, the bag with his equipment.

Then he heard something, a short groan coming somewhere from behind him.

Daemon quickly drew a knife from his coat and jumped behind the device so it stood between him and the sound's source. He waited a minute… Then two… By the 5th he choose to investigate.

Slowly he started walking towards a small rock formation that made a corner to the left, still with his knife ready.

He then saw a hand on the corner, the arm it belonged too wasn't fully visible as it was hidden by the corner.

Daemon's eyes widened as he recognized the armor of a Nova officer…

He ran to the man, which had a hole in his chest straight through the heart. Daemon analyzed the wound and assumed it was made by a blaster shot. He frowned his eyebrows; he couldn't have possibly made the sound. The wound was lethal…

His eyes were drawn by another officer a bit farther from the first one. The other had a sword stabbed on his stomach; he coughed heavily dripping some blood on the ground before Daemon reaching out for him and lifting the back of this head.

"Hey, hang on. Don't give up on me; Stay focused"

The man was obviously dying, his vision was unfocused and his skin pale-white.

"So *cough* many of 'em… We could not hol…" – His quote was interrupted by a heavy cough, more blood.

"You did your best, don't worry. It'll be okay… don't try to talk. I'll patch you up" – Daemon started grabbing some bandages from his coat but the Officer's hand grabbed his own.

"It's over for me…Save your cares for *cough* someone who needs them Kid…" – A slight pause as he regained some of his breath - "Is… Is my brother okay…?" – His head moved at the direction of the other Nova officer, but he could obviously not see him.

"He's…." – Daemon hesitated

"He's dead, isn't he?" – The Officer interrupted

Daemon knew that there was no point in lying, the officer had already figured out what had happened… He sighed.

"He… Yes… I'm sorry…" – He lowered his head with a harsh expression.

"It's fine… I'll see him soon… I'm so… Tired… Dark…" – His voice was considerably low.

"Rest now, you'll feel better…" – Daemon said with the calmest voice he could, even though his throat was awfully dry.

"Please… Avenge my brother… Avenge… him…" – The officer's hands went numb and his head tumbled to the side with wide-open eyes.

Daemon placed a hand on his neck just to be sure. He sighed and closed the man's eyelids.

"Damn it." – He punched the ground and immediately regretted it, as his finger started hurting again.

He knew that death was normal, people died every day. But that still didn't make him feel good about it. He hated it.

He shook his head to clean his mind of the thoughts; it wasn't the time or the place to feel pity. He sat trying to think of his next step, but he didn't have to. He heard noises coming from one of the living-compounds as 3 armored thugs came out of it, guns in hand. Daemon dived under a rock and waited, watching by the corner.

One of them started talking

"I'm sure I heard it too, an explosion coming far and some electrical noises coming from here."

"Like last week, when you thought you had seen Prime being eaten by a tree."

"That was different, I saw it, didn't hear it."

"Whatever, one way or another you were dreaming."

"Let's see who'll be dreaming when I knock you out, son of a bitch…" – He hit his companion on the shoulder with the back of the gun.

"You up for it bastard? Bring it..." – Answered the other

The third took a step to stand between both of the arguing thugs.

"STOP IT, you both ladies. I wasn't eaten by a tree, as you can see. We're in charge of watching this place, if something happens Boss will blame on us, and we know what happens when Boss gets mad." – Stated looking for one, then for the other.

They exchanged looks of agreement

"Alright, alright, let's get a look around. I'll check the device and you two scout the area."

"Ok"

"Fine"

They started splitting up, one coming towards the machine Daemon was close of and the other two checking the holes and the area.

Daemon watched as the Thug, Prime, was using the device's controls. He clicked a few buttons and then looked at the metal arc, waiting for something that didn't happen. He slammed his fist against the panel, still nothing.

"THE DEVICE IS BROKEN, DAMN IT. WE'RE IN TROUBLE GUYS" – Yelled back at his two companions.

"Forget about the device, we already brought everything needed. Besides, come take a look on what we found."

Prime started walking back, but he stopped. Checked his belt which had an empty leather sheath, he touched it a couple times before changing direction towards Daemon.

"Hang on, just going to grab my sword."

"Yeah, come and get it bastard" – Daemon thought

"Hey! It's still alive" – The other thug screamed

Prime stopped and turn at his direction again to his companion

"WHAT is alive?"

"Come on, you'll see."

Prime sighed, how come he was the one that was always forced to work with idiots?

"Coming" – He went to join the other two, who were going down a stair in one of the holes.

"Hurry up"

Daemon took his chance and got closer to peek at the hole; inside he saw the three getting around a familiar brownish figure. He bit his lower lip and whispered to himself:

"Shit, Rocket…"

The Raccoon looked like he had just awoken from an unconscious state, as his eyes were blinking repeatedly. He then took conscious of the Thugs in front of him and immediately clenched his teeth.

"Stay away from me, bastards"

"Oh my, it talks!" – Prime mocked, making the other two to laugh softly

"I'd like to see ya' call me that when you're turned into DUST, funny boy"

"I know who you are; I saw your photos as one of the "Saviors of Xandar". Funny thing, you can't even save yourself right now. – He pointed the gun at Rocket's face, finger on the trigger.

Rocket looked at the gun and then noticed a small spot against the sky, on the edge of the hole he was in. Daemon returned the stare and placed a finger against his lips, pointed at himself and then for the two thugs on each side. Followed up by a gesture to Rocket and then for Prime, standing between both.

Rocket nodded discreetly

Daemon stood up, and whistled really loud. When the three thugs turned, there were already two knives flying straight to the heads of the corner ones. Prime looked as both feel instantly and looked back; Rocket was with a small pistol in his hands and a grin on his snout.

"Night Night, Fucker." – Said as he pulled the trigger, making Prime's brains burst across the floor.

He lied down a bit, waiting for the adrenalin rush to wear off. But as it did, he started to feel a growing pain on his left leg.

Daemon went down the hole to meet with Rocket; he kneeled beside the raccoon and let out a small hiss.

"Rocket… Your leg…"

Rocket looked down and wished he didn't do it. He felt nauseous and numb. His leg was covered with blood, but that wasn't the worst.

The worst was the bone pointing out of it.

"Those metal attachments on your bone protected it against a fracture; your shin bone went up to the base of your knee. I don't think there is much major damage beyond that, but you've lost some blood. I need to put the bone in place or you won't be able to walk."

Rocket immediately tried to pull his leg away, but the pain didn't let him.

"Augh, FUCK. Don't you dare to touch me!"

Daemon ignored him and placed both hands on Rocket's leg, one on his ankle and the other on the back of the shin.

"This is not open for discussion, either you let me or I'm doing it anyway. So shut it, man up and get ready"

Rocket groaned in pain and was about to protest again, but he knew Daemon was right. It needed to be done.

"FINE! Fine… Just do it fast"

"Here, bite this." – He grabbed a stick from the ground and threw it to Rocket, who smelled it three times before sinking his teeth into it.

"On the count of three, ok?" – Rocket nodded

"Alright… THREE! – And pulled

Around the forest some bird-like creatures started flying as fast as they could, whatever had done that noise sounded deadly.

Rocket groaned in pain for almost a whole minute, before realizing he still had the stick in his mouth. He spit it out.

"WHAT THE HELL, YOU SAID ON THREE!" – Rocket shouted

"I didn't say I was going to do a countdown. Surprise usually reduces large amounts of pain; And besides… It's over, you can thank me later.

"THANKING YOU? I'LL BE PLACING A BOMB IN YOUR BED AS SOON AS I HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY"

Daemon ignored him and grabbed another stick, about Rocket's leg size.

"You need a splint; I'll wrap this around your leg with a bandage. Luckily, the bleeding stopped so I don't think we'll need to worry about THAT"

For his surprise Rocket took the wooden stick without ceremony from his hands.

"I'm doing it, THANK YOU Doctor. You've done enough."

Daemon rolled his eyes, but handed him the bandage. He watched as Rocket strapped it around his leg, preventing the limb from bending. Rocket shot out a killer glare when he stopped and Daemon tied on the bandage another knot on the edge.

"What happened?" – He asked as Rocket slowly stood up.

"Damned thug hit the machine; we were teleported to the other side of the planet."

"So it was a teleporter then."

"Yeah, I just said that moron"

Daemon ignored him again

"We need to regroup and tell the others, there can't be a good reason for a teleporter to be isolated in the middle of the woods. And there's another one up there – "He pointed outside the hole they were on – "It seems Nova units were attacked on the planet. There were two dead officers back there."

"Bastards…" – Rocket picked up one of the thugs weapons and ripped one of the side part's out, checking if it had the correct size for him to use as a support. He smiled as it fit perfectly.

"What exactly happened then, how did we end up here?"

"You're really dumb or just pretending? We were too close to the teleporter when it blew up; considering it caught us, the blast teleported to the other device, which is the one you said its close by. I was closer, so I guess the blast threw me farther." – He started walking slowly towards the stairs, and stopped when he reached the bottom.

He turned and smiled: "Ladies first Doc…"

Daemon rolled his eyes and started climbing, Rocket right behind him. He tried offering his hand when he reached the top, but the Raccoon slapped it away rudely.

They both looked around, but the mining site was deadly silence and empty.

"We should probably scavenge these compounds if we're going across half the planet. It's not really big, but we'll take at least 4 days to get to the Milano. And I lost my bag, which means we're out without any type of medicine."

"Whatever ya' say Doc, I don't care."

They started looking around and grabbed everything they could. Rocket found a compass that worked according to both sun's position, and some dehydrated food. Daemon checked the thugs they killed and found a bottle, some units, energy ammo and sleeping pills. Beyond that, everything was pretty much scavenged already.

They placed everything inside a backpack that was inside one of the compounds, Daemon also took the Sword that belonged to the thug called Prime. He placed the officer's bodies side by side and placed a black canvas he found around the mine to cover them. Rocket watched silently.

"Alright, I suppose that's all I can do for now..." – Said as he finished strapping the canvas to the ground – "You ready to go Rocket…? Rocket?" – He turned to see the Raccoon standing at the edge of the forest.

"Ya' coming or not white slug?" – Yelled, as he entered the tall grass, disappearing from sight.

Daemon sighed. It was going to be a long walk…

"Start talking and I'll make this as painless as possible"

The thug didn't know how things went by, he was sure they were winning the fight and then suddenly everything exploded and he lost consciousness. Now he had been brutally awoken, his helmet removed and held against a tree, the Green woman holding a knife pressed on his throat.

"I… I don't know what happened. I swear!"

"Sure you don't, that's why two of our friends simply VANISHED out in the air. Because you DON'T know what happened" – She pressed the knife harder – "So how about you start telling us what is that and what is it for."

The thug swallowed dry, panic starting to make him unquiet.

"I don't know what it is for! I was only instructed to guard it! That's all. Please don't kill me." – He closed his eyes in despair and tried to avoid the knife. But Gamora held him strongly

She dropped him hardly on the ground, only to grab both of his hands and stab her knife across both of them, strapping them to the tree.

The thug screamed in pain and tried to struggle to escape, but he couldn't

"I'll let you think for some time, if you don't have anything useful to tell me I'll snap your toes one by one."

Both Quill and Drax were scavenging the debris of the device, now unrecognizable after the blast.

Gamora stepped in and they both turned to see her

"Any luck?" – Quill stood up and cleaned his clothes from the dust.

"No, that guy is as worthless as a broken ship. Though I still think I'd rather have the ship."

Quill sighed – "We found Pierce's bag and Rocket's cannon. They wouldn't leave their personal stuff behind if they had walked away. But they weren't disintegrated either, there should have been signs if it had happened"

"What signs friend Quill?" – Drax asked.

"Usually burnt limbs, not a good thing to see."

They both agreed

"We still don't know what happened to them, so I guess we're on a dead end here."

"I don't understand, how could and end be dead?" – Drax had a slightly confused face

"Metaphor Drax"

"Oh"

Quill placed a hand on his chin, thinking.

"We should probably scout out for any signs of them. If they got lost or taken somewhere we need to find them."

"Sounds fair to me Quill, but let's leave the Milano back, in case they return. It would be bad if they arrived here we're nowhere to be found."

"Yeah, I suppose it would… Let's split up and see what we can find. We'll meet here again in a day, ok? If we don't succeed, we'll contact Nova."

"Understood"

"Ok"

Gamora frowned her face – "What about the thug over there?" – She pointed at the tree behind her.

"He's all yours; I'm not really fond of people who try to kill me"

"I tried once. Does that mean you're not fond of me?" – She smiled

"It's different"

Gamora left out a soft chuckle – "Sure it is."

Rocket took another long swig of the bottle. Dripping some on his chin

"Slow it down Rocket, you're drinking too much."

He rubbed his hand to clean the water drops: - "Don't tell me what to do, its fucking burning here. I'm thirsty"

"I've noticed, and I am too. But you're still exaggerating, it's not normal for your size."

Rocket clenched his teeth at "your size", but he decided to let it go.

"Try having a fur coat attached to your body and let's see how thirsty you get then."

"Fine, fine… Just mind yourself."

Rocket let out a "tsc" sound and kept walking.

They both wandered around the woods for a while, Rocket guiding with the compass in hands. Rocket had a quick step, so Daemon had to run sometimes to catch up. The sword he got was proving very helpful to slice the vines that were in the way. Rocket didn't really care, as he could simply duck or push them away.

4 hours had passed after they left the mine; the forest was very closed and hot. Daemon was sweating a lot, and he knew Rocket probably was too. His only concerns were dehydration and whatever animals they might find inside the forest.

"We need to find a water source soon. How are we on food? – They hadn't eaten since they left.

"Runnin' low, we'll be lucky to last 2 days with it."

"You think the Guardians are waiting us at the same spot?"

"You tell me, what are they thinking psychologist?"

"Don't play funny on me Rocket; you know I'm a Doctor, not a psychologist."

"Whatever, it's all the same."

Daemon took notice Rocket was trying to provoke him, so he didn't answer. Instead he focused on any animal noises, seeing if there was anything they could hunt.

That probably saved their lives.

"Rocket, GET DOWN" – Said, almost humming and pushing the Raccoon's head down.

"What the fu…" – Rocket resisted against the grip, but Daemon held firmly.

"Shhhh… Look." – He pointed ahead, to a presumably empty space.

Rocket thought he was joking at the first place, but then he saw a flicker on the background, as the leaves were moving without wind. With a deeper look he noticed it had a big, animal like, shape. He saw six legs, all ending with razor sharp claws and perfect white teeth shining against the light of both suns.

They watched as the creature slowly walked away, fading into the grass.

"What… The… Hell… was that?"

"Dangerous animals…"

They both stood up cleaning the dirt.

"Never again…" – Rocket started, facing the ground

"What?" – Daemon turned

"You NEVER touch me like that again, you understand… I don't…"

That pretty much sealed it.

"Let me guess, you don't care about me or what I do. You don't care for every single moment I tried to helped you or, in this case, avoided being eaten alive. You don't care… So what about this: I'll keep in my mind that you don't care the next time I save you from GETTING YOUR HEAD BITTEN OUT! HOW DOES THAT SOUND?"

Rocket blinked twice in confusion, it was the first time he saw Pierce getting altered, and he felt guilty deep inside. But he quickly hid the feeling by replacing it with his anger.

"You do that then, I… DON'T… CARE!" – Rocket growled.

"Perfectly fine to me!" – Daemon grabbed the backpack and started walking. For Rocket's anger he was heading to the right way.

They walked in silence for some time, both putting their thoughts in place. Daemon's anger was slowly drowned by his guilt… But he had held it back for so long and couldn't afford to do it anymore. He once again reflected all the reason's he had to forgive Rocket and calmed down. All the heat and pressure had made him lose the edge a bit.

But he would make up for it.

"Hey, uh… Rocket? Listen, I'm sorry for what I said… I didn't mea…" – He looked back, Rocket was standing a few steps behind him.

"Rocket…?"

The raccoon lifted his head, as he had recognized his name but couldn't see whoever had called him. His eyes were unfocused and his body was staggering lightly.

Daemon watched as the raccon tumbled to his side.

"ROCKET!"


	4. Infection

Rocket focused, he was feeling weird ever since they left the mine. That heat was killing him…

Daemon had given him the bottle, which he was carrying by a string crossing his shoulder all the way down to his hips. He grabbed it many times as they walked to take swigs, and Daemon obviously noticed he was drinking too much water, but his throat was still feeling awfully dry.

"Stupid suns" – He thought.

He was surprised when a hand forced him down, and tried to protest but Daemon called his attention to something ahead. It was some kind of beast with a camouflage or invisibility, but could be visible if one was paying attention. He thought it was strange; his eyes were very good to see details or things concealed to most of people.

So why didn't he notice the big feral creature?

He let it go as the animal slowly walked away and stood up, still feeling a bit dizzy. As he remembered Daemon pushed him down, he got angry and argued, and was surprised that Daemon reacted for the first time.

He would probably continue the discussion, but his head was hurting and he was feeling hot, therefore Rocket just followed, letting Daemon lead this time.

His movements started becoming mechanic, his breath speeding up uncontrollably… He looked at his hands and noticed they were shaking, or was just his vision? He couldn't tell... The Raccoon looked at his feet a blurry and unfocused vision.

"Left… Right…"

He captured the rhythm and followed it, but the words were lost inside his mind…

"Right… Right…"

He heard a sound that looked like his name, but he couldn't tell what it really was. He lifted his head and looked forward… He saw someone standing there, like he was waiting for him… Yet his eyes were so heavy…

Rocket lost his senses for a brief time. One moment he was looking at a deep forest with someone in front of him and in the other he was staring at the sky… Clean, with two suns in each side…

His eyes were slowly closing and his vision getting darker. For a brief moment his eyelid was forced open and a bright white light put above it. Was there someone saying something? He could hear a faint sound… Everything felt uncomfortable… All he wanted was to rest... What was could be wrong about that? His consciousness dove into a relaxed state, as he fell in a peaceful sleep.

But not for long…

Nightmares slowly came up to him. Flooding his mind with morbid pictures and memories he wish he didn't had…

He was inside a cage... It felt cold and extremely painful.

He was strapped in an operation table, muzzled. White coated scientists slicing every centimeter of his body with a grin on their faces.

Underwater… Or was it some kind of life-fluid? He was wearing a mask that pumped oxygen to his lungs… It felt horrible. He looked down and saw cables sticking out from the implants on his chests. As he moved, he felt more on his back…

"Vermin."

"Forget the anesthetics. We need to monitor brain activity."

"Struggling is pointless; you'll never leave this place."

"Ever…"

That wasn't truth, he had escaped… Why was he there then? How did he go back? What had happened? He couldn't remember anything, pain and despair was all he knew…

He was alone…

Rocket woke coughing really hard.

He tried standing up but his spasms were not letting him. A hand was placed in his back and helped him sit. As he slowly started regaining his consciousness he noticed a bottle being held in front of him.

"Here"

Rocket took it and drank all of it, dripping large quantities in his jumpsuit… As his vision returned slightly he saw Daemon looking at him worriedly.

"Wha' happened?" – Rocket asked

The answer came pretty fast: "You fainted, fell to the ground while we were walking."

Rocket growled as he noticed both his head and heart were pounding at the same rhythm; He was still feeling nauseous.

"I think I'm about to throw up…"

"You did already. Twice, actually."

Daemon noticed the Guardian was trying to held strong, but his state wasn't being his best ally.

"Stupid heat…"

"Rocket, I don't think it's the heat…"

The Raccoon looked at him slowly with tight eyes as they were hurting too.

"What'ya mean?"

"Let me see your wound." – He started unfolding the bandages and Rocket was about to say something, but Daemon raised a hand.

"I'll do it."

As the last of the bandages and the splint fell, Daemon analyzed the wound and frowned. It had acquired a greenish pattern and was slightly swollen. Dry blood mixed with Rocket's fur.

He touched some parts on his knee to check if the bone was still in the right place, which made Rocket whimper slightly.

"You caught some kind of pathogen. It's causing all the symptoms you've been having. And the state of your leg isn't helping, considering it's probably going to infect soon… As for your bone, it seems to be doing fine by now. The hole it ripped isn't too large; you'll probably not need stitches."

"That's some good news" – Said adopting a sarcastic tone – "But… A Pathogen…?"

"Disease, sickness, viral agent…"

"I know wha' it is smart-ass, I just want to know where did it came from and how the heck It's using my body as a Sunday ride."

"I could probably detect and neutralize it easily, but I don't have the proper equipment to do so." – He looked around meaning the forest wasn't the best place to be making vaccines or cures – "You'll have to hang on until we reach the Milano."

"Awesome, things couldn't get any better…"

Daemon pointed at his right. – "I found a pond while you were unconscious, we should probably drink as much water as we can, fill the canteen and keep moving on."

Rocket grumped. The last thing he wanted right now was to move, but he didn't say anything. He watched as Daemon grabbed another bandage from the inner pockets of his coat and started unfolding them, but stopped. He extended it to Rocket.

"I… uh. You can do it if you want to, I know you feel uncomfortable."

"Damn hell I do, gimme' this." – He finished unfolding it and grabbed the stick, pressing it against his leg.

The Raccoon tried a few times to wrap his leg with the bandage, but his arms felt numb and weak, and either the stick wasn't properly secured or he couldn't go around his leg with one hand only.

Daemon held the stick and noticed the Guardian was about to protest, but he shook his head.

"Let's work together then, hold the stick and I'll roll the bandage."

Rocket bragged, but he held the stick while Daemon skillfully rolled it out a few times before finishing it with a tight knot. After that he stood up and kept looking at Rocket.

"Wha'? If ya' expecting a 'thank you' you might as well sit again."

"I wasn't. I was just waiting you lift that lazy tail of yours and start walking"

Rocket looked at him ready to return the provocation, but he was smiling.

"I'm joking, let's go." – He turned and started walking.

Rocket slowly stood up, seeing if his legs could support his weight and they did. He started following Daemon through the woods, still a bit nauseous and staggering.

They cut through the deep forest, Daemon often stopping to wait for Rocket as he had slowed considerably. Daemon was picking up symptoms as they walked. The Raccoon's breath was fast and heavy, dry mouth probably, varying body temperatures… Whatever it was, the disease could get worst, the first symptoms usually are the weakest so that means the faster they reached the Milano, the best…

Rocket at least seemed to be dealing with pretty well. Despite his weakened state, the Guardian was way worse than he looked like, but he kept going…

"You've ever been sick like that before?" – Daemon asked without turning his back as they kept walking.

"Wha'?" – The Raccoon coughed

"Sick. You. Been before?"

"Ya' know, I hated you least when you weren't playing fun on me, just wait till' I get better and I'll teach you a lesson, Doc."

Daemon left out a soft chuckle.

"I'll keep that in mind, but you still haven't answered the question."

"I seriously can't believe this guy is playing smart on me" – Rocket thought

"No, I haven't."

Daemon turned

"As I said, I'm no psychologist… But even I can tell you're lying. C'mon."

"Ugh, what's with it anyway? Why the sudden interest?" – The Raccoon took the lead and Daemon followed.

"We're stuck with each other for at least a couple days; I'm just trying to keep the conversation going."

"Mah' head is pounding and my leg is hurting more than getting hit again and again by a plasma repeater. So I find it quite harsh to focus on anything but walking and drinking water right now."

"I'll respect that then, but tell me if you want to resume this anytime."

"Don't wait for it."

He waited and 10 minutes later of walking, Rocket asked:

"Have YOU ever been sick?"

Daemon wasn't really ready, so the question got him a bit off the guard. He quickly recovered.

"Yeah, sometimes… It's been a lot of years though…"

"Years, huh? I though you Terrans would get sick more often…"

"We usually do, especially when talking about viruses outside from Terra. The thing is I've been injecting myself with every cure or vaccine along the years and my body has built a protection, which categorizes my immunity to most of poisons or substances."

"Pretty interesting, I was starting to think you were just one hell of a lucky son of a bitch."

"I suppose I might be sometimes…"

"If that's the case then let me borrow some of it, I'll probably need it considering I got one fucked up leg and the last person I'd want in my company right now."

"At least your state hasn't brought your mood down. That's a plus for me."

"You bet it didn't jackass."

They've walked a little bit more until Rocket stopped to regain his breath.

Daemon noticed and stopped too.

"Let's take a rest, we're both exhausted."

Rocket didn't say anything; he just turned to lean his back against a tree bark, sliding to the ground and stretching his legs forward.

"Nightfall is coming fast; it'll get cold without the suns. I'll grab some wood to make a fire, try to get some rest."

"I'm fine, stop treating me like I'm some invalid guy."

"I'm not, I'm just telling you to rest. I'll be back in a moment."

Rocket watched as Daemon dived into the woods disappearing shortly.

He closed his eyes for a bit, trying to focus on anything but the pounding and the unceasing pain coming from his leg. He tried to put his thoughts in place for the day. Daemon had been acting differently since he had the rage attack, and Rocket didn't understand it. Why was he caring so much about him while he was being as ruthless as he could? Damn it, the fucker was annoyingly unpredictable…

Rocket's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a stick breaking; His ears started moving up and down trying to notice anything uncommon.

"Pierce, I swear if you try to scare me I'll shove my pistols up your a…"

As Rocket watched, a shade slowly took form into claws, legs and then fangs as a beast-like creature was looking at him with tight eyes.

Predator eyes…

**Hey, sorry about the relatively short chapter, I couldn't think of any better things to write while they were walking in the woods. I think I'll be finishing the story in about 3 -4 chapters, so stay tuned :D**


	5. Open Wounds

**Really long chapter ahead, sorry for the wait. Expect first friendship fluffs and awkward sweet moments. Hope you enjoy it! **

The beast had green fur and a bone-crown coming from the back part of his head. From his mouth, 2 sharp teeth longer than the others were shining against the sunlight in a perfect white color. The beast took a step forward.

Rocket drew his pistols from the jumpsuit and pointed them at the creature's head. When it took another step the Guardian shot the ground in front of it, inches from the beast claws.

"Ain't no food for ya' here. Back off or I won't be missing the next one" – As for emphasizing what he just said, he pressed the trigger lightly making the gun glow with energy.

The creature took another step.

Rocket shot directly at its head and for a brief moment, he thought he had it. The shot went perfectly to its eye…

But the creature turned his head in an extremely fast speed, making the shot hit the bone crown. The shot split in different directions in the form of sparks, falling useless to the grass around the Beast.

Rocket looked with wide-eyes. His blasters were his invention and could pierce through the hardest armor. He quickly recovered and kept pressing the triggers as fast as he could, sending shining projectiles to the creature that was blocking them all. It looked like it was dancing, jumping from spot to spot and redirecting the shots with the crown. The raccoon kept shooting and screaming his lungs out to scare the creature away, but it did not work.

Eventually the blasters went out of power.

Rocket started searching his jumpsuit for an energy pack to reload, but as he did it he saw the creature take a step back and tense all of his muscles, its teeth clenched with a ferocious stare. It started running toward Rocket, who closed his eyes and turned his face to the other side.

So this was how it was going to end…

He waited for the pain to come. The feeling of being torn apart by sharp claws or teeth was already hovering through the edges of his mind. Just like when he was in that stupid lab, waiting in a cold table, strapped down, for the razors, knives and needles…

But after a whole minute, it didn't come.

Rocket opened his eyes and noticed his vision was blocked by a figure. The figure was standing between him and the creature, wearing a white coat with two knives by the points in his right hand.

Daemon's left shoulder was dripping red, a cut wound coming down his arm. The beast had a similar cut on its paw. It was hard to say whose blood was whose.

"You okay?"

Rocket sighed. – "Yeah, I suppose…" – He coughed a bit. He was starting to lose consciousness again. – "Damn it…" – He thought

"What about you overgrown CAT? Would you like to dance?" – He swung a knife in the air and grabbed it again.

The beast growled and starting taking steps around them, and Daemon did the same.

They did that for a few seconds before the beast take position and jumped in Daemon's direction. He dodged all the claw swings and bites, but Rocket noticed, despite his vision starting to fail again, that he was missing a lot of chances to strike back as his shoulder wasn't letting him use the left arm properly. He also realized something else; that Pierce was drawing the feral creature's attention away from him.

His movements eventually turned slower but the creature wasn't holding back. Pierce's way of combat was from distance, throwing knives to prevent any possible enemies to act or for a safe takedown. He had a precise aim, therefore any openings or small spots in one's armor could be easily hit if he was aiming for them.

The beast was different.

It wasn't leaving an opening for him to retreat; somehow it seemed to know his disadvantage was in close-combat. Eventually some cuts started hitting on both sides, the beast fur now tainted with vibrant red and Daemon's coat pretty much in the same state. None of them seemed to be serious though, but it was obvious the fight was coming for an end as one of the beast's claws swiped a centimeter away from Daemon's head. The beast had thrown itself too farther forward, which gave Daemon an opening to retreat and get a clean shot, which he used pretty well. He rolled backwards and threw two knives that hit the beast paws, which reduced its speed greatly.

Daemon now had the advantage, the beast wasn't in condition to chase him and therefore he could throw knives until the fight had ended, with the beast lying on the ground. The creature growled trying to think of a way out of it. It was smart, knowing the fight wouldn't end up its way if it kept going like this…

So it decided to turn to the smaller target and make a run for it.

The beast turned and ran straight to Rocket; Daemon noticed its reason to run immediately.

"Damn it." – He ran behind the beast, throwing knives to slow it down. He hit the rear legs tendons and the beast tripped, which gave him time to run past it and place himself between Rocket and the creature.

The beast jumped, ignoring the pain and numbness of its leg. It opened the sharp-teeth filled mouth to bite whatever or whoever dared to stand on the way, which in the case, was Daemon and behind him, Rocket.

Blood dripped on the floor…

Daemon pushed the beast away; it rolled backwards and placed itself on a jump position again. Daemon kneeled as his legs failed to support his weight. He looked at his left arm, now falling useless to the side of his body, and took notice of two deep holes flooding with red liquid.

"Fuck." – He had managed to block the creature's bite from doing full damage by using both the knife on his right hand and his left arm, or else he couldn't stop the beast strong jaws from killing both him and Rocket. It worked, but he had paid the price for it.

The beast took a step back to gain some distance and then started running straight to them again.

The world seemed to move in slow motion, as Daemon realized both him and Rocket were about to die…

He looked back to the other Guardian, who was in a barely conscious state and breathing really hard.

His vision was starting to blur because of the blood-loss. He looked up trying to focus and saw what could be their last hope.

He grabbed a knife from his belt and held it firmly in his right hand. He only had one chance and it needed to be perfectly timed. As the beast muscle's tensioned and released in a perfectly balanced jump, Daemon threw the knife up and turned his face away.

A giant branch fell on the beast's back, and Daemon couldn't tell what had made that terrible breaking sound, the beast's spine or the branch as it split in two.

He sat holding his arm against his shoulder, trying to regain his breath. The Adrenalin coursing through his brain slowly faded away and the pain took its place. His arm and shoulder seemed to be on fire, pounding at the same rhythm as his heart.

"Son of a bitch…" – He had to stanch the bleeding, so he held his right hand firmly gripped on his arm and closed his eyes because the dizziness was making him nauseous.

He opened his eyes as he felt a hand touch his arm, Rocket was standing beside him.

"Ya' fucking idiot. Look what you've done to yourself..." – He pulled Daemon's arm closer and looked at the wounds, now swollen and with red edges. – "You need to take care of that."

"It's fine, the bleeding has already stopped. I need to wash the wounds though… There's a lake I saw when I went for the woods, it's just a couple minutes from here. We should set camp here, since we probably won't be running out of food anytime soon…" – He looked at the dead creature's body.

"We're EATING it? We don't even know wha' the hell is that… that thing!" – Rocket coughed and looked to Daemon like he was an idiot.

"We don't, but we know it's made of flesh… And as far as I know every creature made of flesh can be eaten…"

"Please, tell me ya' joking…"

"Believe me, I wish I was too..." – A small pause – "I got you something while I was away."

"Something? Great! A souvenir from our extremely fun journey through woods with killer beasts and deadly diseases! I've never been so happy in my entire life."

"More like something to keep your head clear smart-ass. Here." – He threw a root to Rocket, who grabbed it and rolled it over in his hands.

"Amazing, I can be a farmer now. You happen to have a straw hat or a wooden hoe too?"

"Very funny. It's a Martinelli Floracea root, it works like a painkiller, just chew it."

"You want me to eat an unknown animal and a root, what's your call again?"

"You don't have to do it if you don't want to. I'm just trying to help, but again if you want to keep playing the tough one it's your call." – He grumped as his arm started itching again. – "I'll wash up, take care." – He turned and walked away.

Rocket looked to the root and compared the pros and cons of eating it. His leg was killing him…

"To hell with him…" – He smelled the root and stick it in his mouth.

He frowned his face. It tasted like dirt.

For his surprise, a couple minutes later his pain almost disappeared entirely, an annoying itch was all that remained. Rocket got somehow angry Pierce was right, but he felt guilty for that.

The Raccoon thought what had just happened. Daemon had almost lost his arm trying to protect him and he made fun of everything he said. What the hell was wrong with him? He blamed his disease, as he was trying to look though despite his weakened state and that was taking him out of his mind. He decided he would apologize later even though that would be against everything he had done before against Pierce. He could live with that, it was just a regular apologize.

He was tired and his only company was the beast carcass in the middle of the Grass. He walked a bit through some fallen logs and leaves and lied down against a tree, he was tired beyond measure, even though he hadn't done anything all day beyond walking. And even that for a short time…

He closed his eyes and slowly fell into another troubled sleep…

Daemon walked for about ten minutes before reaching the lake.

He took his clothes off, including the bandage and dived into the cold water. It felt refreshing as he washed the red stains from his wounds and the dirt that accumulated from the walk. He sat on the edge of the lake and took a look on his wounds. It didn't look good.

"Great, I'll need to play tailoring on myself…" – He thought and sighed.

He reached his coat, now painted with blood and some rips, the worst being in the shoulder. He took off the knives and everything else and sorted out a small box. He then sank the coat under water and rubbed the stains with his fist. A few moments later he felt satisfied and the coat was almost brand new, except for the holes of course.

"Ok, now the hardest part." - He said to himself and grabbed the box. He held it firmly for a few minutes before sighing and opening it.

Inside there was a black thread and a couple needles in plastics.

He unpacked a needle and tied the thread's end on the edge of it.

"Alright, deep breaths and here we go…" – He wished deeply he could turn his face away and just do it, but he couldn't.

For about an hour he groaned and whimpered, but in the end he had a long black line contrasting against his pale-red skin.

He also used the moment to patch his coat, which ended up pretty well too. He packed everything again, filled the canteens and started walking back.

After all, he hand an impatient Raccoon to take care of…

Quill called once again.

"PIERCE! ROCKET!" – He waited for a brief moment but no answer came.

"Damn it" – He leaned against a tree and started playing his Walkman, trying to think. They haven't found them yet and nightfall was upon them. He changed the frequency from his communicator.

"Gamora, Drax. You there?" – A short pause.

Gamora answered first.

"I'm here"

"Friend Quil…"

He pressed the communicator button again - "Any luck?"

"No sign of them, we've been walking blindly."

"Get back to the Milano; we'll resume the search tomorrow. This planet has no moons, so it'll be pure dark when the night comes. Out."

"Understood, we'll meet you there."

He shut off the communicator and started walking back where he came from. They had all picked up trackers when they left to search in order not to get lost, so he only had to follow Groot's signal to reach the Milano. He walked pretty far away, so that gave him time to think about the things that happened since the fight.

They scouted the area around the device first. It proved to be useless as there weren't any tracks of Rocket's paws or Daemon's boots, even though they found the tracks from the thugs that attacked them. But even that search was pointless, as the footprints just disappeared at some point.

The search range expanded, each one of them went in a different direction. They looked throughout the wood calling both of the Guardians and no answers came. They just couldn't have vanished out in the air, could they?

Quill knew there was something wrong in that mission, the Nova troops that were supposed to be in the planet's mines hadn't answered when they contacted, just after reaching the planet. They figure it was some kind of interference because of the planet's unknown magnetic field or even the thug's blocking it somehow. But there had been no answer for all this time and that couldn't be normal.

Interference… Suddendly Quill had an ideia. He grabbed his communicator again.

"Gamora, can you hear me?"

A few minutes and he heard the sound of Gamora turning on her comms.

"I thought I said we would meet in the Milano Quill…"

"We will, but in case you get there before me… Nova said there was some strange signal coming from the planet's surface, right?"

"Yes, I know. I thought that was what we were here for… What are you trying to say?"

"Alright, listen: If we can discover what kind of signal it is, maybe it can give us a clue of what the device was. You think you can manage to do that?"

"Rocket was the…" – She hesitated – "IS the one good with tech, but I suppose it shouldn't be that hard. I've dealt with similar situations before."

"Really? I'd like to hear more about that later."

"You probably wouldn't. Lots of blood involved."

"Alright Miss. Assassin, I'll meet you there."

"Fine to me… But Quill"

"What?"

"Don't ever call me that again."

"Ok, ok. Sorry. I'm out."

"Out."

Quill continued walking at the sound of "Cherry bomb" and allowed himself to give a small smile.

At least now they had a starting point.

Rocket's body was on fire.

He had fallen asleep, but the fever and nausea had made him swing between conscious and unconscious state. The Guardian was delusional in many ways, as he could only see flashing images and couldn't tell which ones were dreams and which ones weren't. But the pain was real, very real.

"Rocket, stay with me. Focus."

The Raccoon opened his eyes slowly. It was dark already and a small fire was burning a few feet from him, but the light was partially blocked by a shape standing beside him.

"Pierce…?"

"I'm here, easy now. Sit, I'll get you some water."

Rocket was breathing hard and didn't feel like he had any forces to get up, but Daemon helped him by supporting his back again. His lungs were itching hard because of the coughing.

Daemon returned shortly with the bottle and placed it in Rocket's bottom lip. He didn't resist, but shortly took the bottle from the doctor's hands and emptied it.

He wiped the rest of the water from his snout with his forehand.

"I uh…*cough*. Thanks…"

Daemon looked back at him.

"No problem." – He watched as Rocket slowly lied down again placing his left paw in his forehead. It felt like lava was poured on it.

"Hand's off please." – Rocket looked at him confused, as he was holding a piece of cloth. He pulled Rocket's hand away from his forehead and placed the cloth against it. It was wet but comfortably cold.

Daemon adjusted the cloth to be right in the middle of Rocket's forehead.

"Rest, save your strengths for tomorrow. I'll wake you if anything goes wrong."

Rocket nodded softly with eyes closed. Daemon started to walk away.

"Pierce…"

He stopped.

"Yeah?"

"Am… Am I dying…?"

Daemon looked at him with a worried look. There was something about his tone…

"No, of course not silly. Don't think about things like th…"

"I don't want to end up like this… I… I don't want to be alone… I…" – He felt tears starting to form on the edge of his eyes… The guardian was feeling so weak…

He opened his eyes and turned his head slightly as he felt a hand on his chest.

"Please… Don't do this... I can't take it anymore."

Rocket was delusional; it was rather obvious the visions from his past were tormenting his mind.

"Rocket, listen to me." – The raccoon's ears and tail flinched lightly. – "You're not alone, you'll NEVER be alone again. I'm here and I'll take care of you, it's a promise. I would never do anything to hurt you…" – He grabbed the Rocket's paw with the other hand and placed it on the raccoon's own chest, going up and down rapidly. – "Trust me, at least this time, okay?"

Rocket looked at him with unfocused eyes, only to close them shortly after and fall asleep again…

He swung between awake and unconscious state all night.

Rocket managed to remain awake for a short time, even feeling exhausted. He rolled over and noticed there was something covering him. It looked like a blanket, but he was sure Daemon couldn't store a blanket anywhere in his coat.

His coat…

Rocket realized what was covering him, but somehow it didn't feel strange. His temperature had switched from burning hell to solid ice… Combined with the lack of the suns he was feeling terribly cold. He would have probably died from it, but both the fire burning close to him and the coat were warm beyond measure.

He watched as the dancing flame light's scattered around the woods, it looked like an island in the middle of a sea made purely by emptiness, as nothing beyond a small area around the fire could be seen…

Rocket saw a shadow coming from one of the corners, lying down against a tree… Pierce was sharpening a knife, making a steel noise echo around the woods… Since his coat was off, Rocket could see the bandage wrapped around his arm and shoulder. After some time the raccoon watched as he put the knives aside and reclined his head against the log. He stood there for a couple minutes with eyes closed, before opening them slightly; his mouth opened and from it came the sweetest sounds Rocket had ever heard, filling the night's silence with melodic words…

"_Hello darkness, my old friend…_

_I've come to talk with you again._

_Because a vision softly creeping,_

_Left its seeds while I was sleeping…_

_And the vision that was planted in my brain…_

_Still remains…_

_Within the sound… Of silence…"_

Rocket wouldn't remember the words on the morning after, but the harmony took its place in his memory, filling his thoughts… He let the melody fill in the gaps of his mind, as the lullaby slowly cradled him to a dreamless sleep…

**And that's pretty much it for now. Just a bit more and I'll be reaching the end. Hope you guys (and girls xP) enjoyed it so far! Thanks for reading this chapter!**


	6. Hit

**Reeeeeally long chapter ahead… 6,5k words with pure action and friendship fluffy moments (x3). Sounds fitting, considering this is chapter 6 xP. Anyways, Sorry about the wait, the next chapter will be the ending, so stay tuned and enjoy :D**

Rocket felt a small pinch against his eyelids; he slowly opened them and realized both suns had already risen.

He sat and a piece of cloth fell in his lap, against Daemon's coat. He picked it up and moved it around his hands. It was still a bit wet…

Analyzing it further he noticed it had a similar texture to the coat… He watched the bottom of it and saw a rip on the edge.

"So that's how he got it." – He thought. Daemon had probably ripped a small piece of the coat and used it to reduce his fever. Thinking about it, it was gone completely… His leg and chest were still hurting though.

"Pierce? You there?" – He looked around, but there was no sign of the Guardian. He was alone in the company of the beast carcass, now with a large hole on the chest. Rocket also saw some cooked meat, wrapped in some leaves. Rocket picked it up and smelled it twice before taking a bite. He was surprised it didn't taste bad, though it could use some salt…

Rocket stood up slowly, balancing his weight on his good leg. His pistols were missing, but he found them leaned against a fallen tree, along with the support he took from the weapons back at the mines.

He carefully folded the coat and picked it up carefully. The raccoon walked around the site, taking care to stay away from the beast as his nose was really sensitive, and he wouldn't describe the rotting smell as one he would like to feel really often…

The campfire was already out, Rocket guessed for about an hour. So where did Pierce go?

He got the answer pretty quickly, as the doctor slowly entered the clearing. At the sight of rocket he smiled and dropped them slowly.

"Hey, feeling better?"

"Sort'of… Leg's still itching." – He rotated the immobilized leg, giving a look to the sides. After a short pause he asked. - "Where ya' been?"

"To the lake, went to fill the bottles again. You drank almost everything during the night."

Rocket frowned: "Funny, don't remember it…"

"You were burning on fever; I would be impressed if you remembered anything at all from last night."

Rocket remembered some of the facts, including the song, but he didn't say anything. Daemon changed the subject.

"We have about 18 hours until it gets dark again. Days last a bit longer because of the suns."

The galaxy had its own time measurement system. It was rather simple, so everyone could set up schedules between planets without getting lost. They could be called different names across different cultures, like Hours for Terrans, but they all usually meant the same. As for the Marged – Z planet, the one the guardians were on, its day lasted about 24 hours in Galactic time, and the night only 10, as the planet's rotation was quite slow too.

"I guess we should probably start walkin' then. Wouldn't want Quill to go Verast without us… "– Rocket bit his tongue slightly, as it was feeling dry again. – "I could use a drink right now…"

"I suppose I could too… A man can't live by only drinking water, huh?" – Rocket's eyes rolled and he smiled, as he agreed completely. – "Let's do this then: If we get out of this stupid forest-covered planet I'll buy you a drink."

"Very generous of you Doc but considering we have a lot to walk, how about two?"

"Deal."

"A Teleporter…?" – Quill looked closer to the screen, showing a wave pattern that looked like a purple snake.

"That's what I said. They weren't vaporized, just taken somewhere else." – Gamora leaned back in her chair.

"Where were our friends taken?" – Drax looked at the screen too. He wasn't too fond of scientific matters, but that one was rather simple. – "If it's a teleporter, then one would end up on the other device, isn't that right?"

"I am Groot." – Groot nodded.

"I guess that means 'yes'." – Quill noted. Without Rocket they couldn't understand Groot properly, therefore they agreed the Tree-man would only speak "yes" or "no", followed by the corresponding gesture.

"The only problem is we won't be able to track the other device, as the explosion probably broke it too. There is no signal across the Planet's surface."

"How can we be sure they weren't taken to another planet? They could be anywhere across the galaxy!" – Quill placed his hands on his hips.

"Not to be concerned, the machine is not that powerful. They're somewhere around here."

"And by 'Here' you mean…?"

Gamora sighed

"In the planet, Quill."

"Oh…"

They all stood in silence for a couple seconds, the obvious floating on the air, unsaid.

Until Quill took a step.

"We can't cover the whole planet, it would take days. And besides, we're not even sure they…"

"I AM GROOT!"

They all looked at Groot. The message was clear.

"He's right; they're not going down easily. Hell, they probably already figured out what happened and are heading here right now."

"Still, there's no way we can find them without a Life-Sign Tracer…" – Gamora stated.

"Nova has a pack of those. They say it's for getting criminals hiding out of sight but I'd say it's just some privacy-violating shit. They gave me a lot of hard-times back in the day I was with the Ravagers."

"I am Groot."

Gamora crossed her arms.

"So, where can we get some of the 'privacy-violating shit', Quill?"

"If I'm not mistaken there's a Nova ship a few hours from here, we can probably contact them and grab one of the devices."

"Wouldn't we be abandoning our friends?" – Drax asked. The idea of leaving anyone behind voluntarily bothered him.

"It's just for a couple hours Drax, and we don't have a lot of other options… Besides, there's another reason for us to contact Nova right now…"

"Reason…?" – Gamora lifted an eyebrow.

Peter sighed – "I don't know what, but these thugs aren't planning something good by planting a teleporter in this planet. They don't look like the regular type we often are sent to take out…" – He wetted his lips and kept talking – "I believe there's a major plan around this, and somehow they are close to getting it. The troops in the mines didn't answer, and this might mean they're off…"

Everyone understood what "off" really meant…

"Shouldn't we check the mines then? If they were attacked there are probably clues or something waiting for us."

"And probably some trouble too. No, we better be certain before diving blindly into a fight. That's why we'll use the Life-Sign tracer to find Pierce and Rocket, after that…"

"…we can use the device to track the other thugs and find out what they are planning!" – Drax completed and smiled softly – "Very clever friend Quill."

Quill smiled back. – "Right, huh? I can be bright sometimes."

"Sometimes…" – Gamora poked.

"Let me have my glory moments, for Christ's sake." – They all chuckled lightly, the sound echoed around the ship and reduced a bit of the tense atmosphere they had been having.

"Also, some reinforcements would be nice, but I guess it's settled then." – Quill sat in his chair, pressing some buttons and the Milano slowly started gaining life. – "Setting the course to the Nova ship..."

Rocket stopped once again to regain his breath.

"Need another sip?" – Pierce grabbed the bottle.

"Nah, I'm good." – Rocket leaned against his support for a couple seconds before resuming the walk.

They had been walking for a couple hours after they left the improvised camp, and hadn't exchanged many words ever since. Until Rocket made a choice he was reluctant in making.

"Hey, uh… Thanks for the coat."

"What? Oh…" – Daemon looked down to his coat. – "No problem."

Rocket thought: - "Well, that wasn't so bad…" – He continued.

"And the root… It helped…"

"Once again, no problem…"

"And for…"

"Rocket…" – Daemon interrupted and turned.

Rocket looked up, a bit surprised for the sudden cut.

"Yeah?"

"You're welcome."

Rocket looked at him for a second and then nodded once. They kept going.

"Open for any stories?" – Daemon asked without stopping.

"The fuck… Stories?"

"I don't know much about you before we met; once again, I'm just trying to keep the conversation going."

"Not really good with social interactions, huh?"

Pierce chuckled – "Honestly? Not at all… Usually I exchange a few words like 'yes', 'no' or 'you need that medicine' and that's pretty much all of it."

"I can see that…" – He grinned lightly.

"Anyways, got any?"

"Dunno'… Let me think."

Rocket searched his thoughts for anything worthwhile; usually both he and Groot took relatively easy jobs… Or at least the jobs turned easy when they were the ones to do it. Groot would just smash a wanted criminal door open, they would fight off his thugs, defeat them, capture the target and grab the bounty. The only thing was those jobs weren't entirely legal, as criminals would hunt for criminals too. Rocket wasn't a real fan of Nova considering they were locked up uncountable times by them. "Why all the fuzz anyway, it's just some things people will never miss!", as he used to say after stealing the most expensive thing from someone's house or pockets. That thought brought to him an old, yet funny, memory.

"There was a time when Nova caught us 'borrowing' some high-powered Quark batteries from a local armory, and we were sent to a prison much like Kyln called Berata."

"You were already with Groot at the time?"

"I thought I said 'us', didn't I? – He adopted his regular sarcastic tone and coughed twice.

"Oh, sorry. Keep going"

Rocket took a deep breath before talking again:

"Anyways, we were sent to Berata and all our stuff confiscated. Even after I argued with them, saying it was not stealing if we hadn't left the place with it. You see, they charged us from 'private property trespassing' after this."

"Probably not a good idea to argue with Nova, I see."

"Ya' letting me tell the story or what?"

"Alright, alright. I'll be quiet."

Rocket let out a loud 'ahem' and continued:

"We had escaped a few prisons before, so they sent us to the high-security wing. Lots of guards, locks on every door… Real secure shit, ya' know?"

"Sounds pretty tough, how'd you get out?"

"Now that's the funny part. The thing with high-security places is that they all work around a single variable…"

"Variable?"

"There was an 'Emergency-Lockdown System' as the Nova guards would call it; it worked something close to the Alarm back at Kyln. Once a guard presses a certain button on a panel, the whole place gets shutdown preventing any inmates to escape. The 'variable' I was talking is really logical: If it has something to shut everything off, they it has to be something to open all the shit up again."

"I see… Pretty smart."

"Righ', huh? Still, in order to reverse the activation process I had to enter the main control-room, located at the start of the High-security wing and behind walls thicker than Drax's arms." – He started coughing violently, Daemon got close to him and handed him the bottle. – "Thanks…" – He took a few sips and then returned it. – "Well, it would sound impossible for two regular inmates, me and Groot if you're not following…"

"I am."

"Good. Still, it would be quite impossible. But I kept a little gift from our 'not-entirely-legal-business'."

"You mean stealing from the local armory…"

"Yeah, yeah… As I said, we were just borrowing that's all…"

"Borrowing without devolution prediction?"

Rocket smiled – "Pretty much like this."

"Ok, so what did you have with you? Watch the log." – He skipped over a fallen tree and Rocket did the same using his claws.

"A very curious thing… Quark batteries can hold a large quantity of energy in small capsules, that's why they make the best weapon charges, as they take a really tiny place on the gun's primal circuits." – A short pause. – "The average size is about a bean… A square bean actually."

"Yeah… My defibrillator is powered by these… But I thought they cleaned you after sending you inside the prison."

"They did, the bastards took mah' clothes and shit. But they didn't check under my tongue." – He smiled again.

Daemon stopped and looked back, wide eyed and mouth slightly open. – "You placed a Quark battery in your mouth? I don't know much about energy and blast-power, but even I know that Quark batteries can make grenades look like children toys. What if the thing had a reaction?"

Rocket was still smiling - "Luckily it didn't, right? I was kind of desperate so I shoved it on the first place I could think off. Kind of glad I did, or I would have to think of another plan that would probably be harder and take longer than the one I used."

"Still looks dangerous, but go on."

"You mentioned blasts bigger than grenades, right? That was exactly what I though back then. When the guards were leading us to the dining hall I asked Groot to build the largest armor he could, and then I threw the battery on the control-room glass, ducking behind him." – He closed his eyes as the satisfying moment was being played again in his head. – "The blast rendered most of the guards disoriented, if not crippled. And that was all we needed to do what we wanted to. We jumped through and I reprogramed the system to unlock all the doors while Groot was fighting the reinforcements. After that… Well… What do ya' Terrans say? Piece o' cake?"

"I'm not familiar with that… But again, I didn't come from Terra, so I wouldn't know. Still, I'd guess you both took the mess and used it to escape, right?"

"Absolutely… And I even managed to steal most of the Guard's unit cards. So I can say blowing up prisons is quite a profitable job to be in."

"Sounds fun, but not a service I'd like to turn into a habit, I'd say."

They laughed and Rocket said: "Agreed…"

The silence floated for a bit between both of them, until Rocket tripped with his hurt leg and fell to his knees.

"Gah, Fuck!" – He held his thighs as the excruciating pain pulsed all the way over to his chest.

"Damn it, you okay?" – Daemon kneeled beside him. – "Let me see, hold your breath."

Rocket took his paws off the leg reluctantly and Daemon started checking his knee, he took the advice to hold his breath as the limb started itching.

"You twisted your foot, but everything seems to be in order. Wait here." – He stood up and dived into the woods, leaving Rocket alone. After a few minutes he came back with some leaves. Rocket watched as the Doctor placed the leaves in the spaces of the bandage wrap, making sure they had contact with Rocket's body.

"Wha' are these?"

"Just something to relieve the pain, it's like local anesthesia."

"Anesthesia? How am I supposed to walk then, you genius?!"

"You won't" – He dropped the backpack and extended it to Rocket, who grabbed it with a confused look. It wasn't that big, so Rocket could easily wear it too.

"What do you expect me to do with this?"

"Place it on your back, I'm carrying you." – He turned his back to Rocket and kneeled over only one shoulder. – "Climb on."

"You must be joking…"

"Stop playing hard Rocket, just get along with it."

Rocket growled looking at the Doctor's back, extremely pissed. After a few moments censoring himself for even thinking to get along with it, he sighed and placed his hands on the other Guardian's shoulders.

"If… You…" – He made a small impulse with his good leg and placed it just above Pierce's hips – "Ever dare… To mention this to…" – Daemon picked up the Raccoon's hurt leg and placed it just like the other one. – "Anyone…" – Pierce took an impulse himself to lift Rocket a bit higher on his back and crossed his fingers from both hands under Rocket's body to give him something like a seat. He then stood up, now carrying a furred mass on his back. – "I'll make sure you wake up with a grenade on your breakfast."

"I would write it down, but my hands are quite busy at the moment. But for now, felling comfortable?" – He looked back to Rocket, who was giving him a death-stare.

"Ask me this again and I'm biting your neck."

Daemon chuckled – "Okay, okay."

They advanced through the woods having to do a few turnarounds in order to avoid things Daemon couldn't climb on, since he was holding Rocket. After some minutes the Raccoon asked:

"You're not from Terra?"

"I'm a Terran, but I don't come from there. In fact, I've never been there at all."

"That explains why you're so uninformed when it comes to Terra habits and therms."

"Yeah…"

Rocket thought he was being vague on purpose, but he wasn't sure and kept it for himself."

"You happen to have any stories?"

Daemon though for a second.

"I might, but you'll get bored easily, lots of medical terms involved."

"Try me."

Daemon looked back to the Guardian with a sarcastic look.

"Really? Okay then, let me think for a second."

"Not really good with memory?"

"Don't get me wrong" – He grinned – "My memory is fine, I'll just filter to find a good one."

He started looking deeper in his mind, his past was usually focused on him treating random criminals or whoever could afford his services, detailing diseases and treatments wasn't really an interesting subject, especially to Rocket… Somehow he knew the raccoon would get uncomfortable if whatever he said made him remember his past.

"Well, you hardly will find this one interesting. Sure you want to keep going?"

"Just tell it, white-slug."

"Okay then… Before I went to Kyln I used to charge for medic services all around the galaxy."

"So people paid you to inject them with something they probably don't even know what it is? Who would do that?"

"Usually people who were dying from the thing the injection could cure."

"Sounds fair."

"Anyways, most of these jobs, much like yours, weren't completely legal. Usually the hirers were thugs or rich people. I could cure pretty much any disease, so I charged a high-value for my services, which lead people to call me as a 'last-resort'. As said before, blowing up prisons could be profitable. Well… Being a Doctor also is. I could easily afford to survive my way back then." – He watered his lips and continued: - "In one of these jobs I was hired by a clan called "Moonage", usual type of blackmailers, thieves and assassins… Not a group someone would want to hang out with, but I used to follow the 'a job is a job, money is money' phrase really hard, so I took it and went to the planet they were calling me to."

"What planet was it?"

"Hm… I can't remember the name clearly… I think it was 'Magnaceri' or something like that."

"Magnacerus, beautiful place for smuggling."

Pierce looked back to the raccoon and lifted an eyebrow.

"What? I used to go there sometimes… You can't find everything in a local store, ya' know?"

"I see… Well, I'm not completely innocent… Some medications are not allowed in some places too."

Rocket grinned – "There ya' go."

"Okay… Moving on." – He paused to recall where he stopped – "I went to Magnacerus through a rented ship and scouted the area around for my hirers. They were using a small construction as an operation base at the time, I wouldn't know where their original hideout is but that place was pretty well established. Lots of thugs, lots of weapons and lots of illegal merchandising. They led me through the hallways to a separate room, where their leader was laying on a bed with a horrible malformation on his head, a bubble about two times the size of my foot."

"Malformation? You sure he didn't just born ugly like that?"

"Funny thing, I thought that too at the time. But no, it was an allergic reaction to an insect bite called Estarfumes, they look like beetles only a bit bigger and with sharp points on the wings."

"Oh… I think I've seen one of those before…"

"Still, despite the thing looking really bad it could be easily healed if the right treatment was applied on time. Otherwise…" – He placed a finger on his throat and moved it sideways.

"Metaphor…" – Rocket said with a smile, making a reference to Drax's confusion back at Kyln.

Daemon smiled too. – "Yeah. Still, I told my price and asked if they wanted to do the treatment. They accepted it instantly, of course… So I proceed and applied the antidote, the bubble reduced considerably its size and I told them how things would go by after that. How it would shrink until it never existed and that me might throw up a few times during that… But otherwise he would be okay." – He stopped talking for a moment.

Rocket waited, but the impatience won.

"That's it?"

"You kidding? The best part starts now: After I asked for my payment they refused it and instead made a proposal. I would make a partnership with them and they would receive 90% of my profits and in exchange, as the leader's substitute said, they wouldn't kill me right there."

"And you didn't realize they would cheat you like that?"

"At the time? Yes I did, I only imagined it differently but I came prepared."

"Prepared, huh? So you did what? Slaughtered them with your knives just like that other clan you were sent to jail for?"

Daemon stopped. Rocket looked at him waiting for a reaction, and it came; Daemon gave a small pinch on the furred one's forehead.

"Ouch, the hell ya' think you're doing?"

"No, I didn't. And the thing about the clan slaughter… Don't always believe on what people tell you."

That was the moment Rocket realized he had never heard the Doctor's side of the story, and he was pretty much convinced that there was something more about it. He quickly changed the subject to the story again:

"Sorry… Anyways, what did you do?"

"Pretty simple, actually. When I saw what they planned to do I jumped behind their leader, grabbed a needle and stabbed it in his neck."

"Wait, wait… You killed the guy?"

"No, I just sticked the needle on his neck and injected it."

"Oh, I get it."

"Still, I held him for a moment and shoved him back to them. They obviously asked what I had done and I said it: I had injected him with a deadly poison and he would most likely be choking in his own saliva in about 30 minutes."

"Clever… I'd say you had the antidote, right?"

"Yes… They threatened to kill me again, but they wouldn't be able to find the right one they needed in time. And let's admit injecting all my vials inside their leader's body wasn't a clever strategy. I carried a lot of other poisons with me and it would be just a matter of time before they ran into one of them. Their leader, of course, was scared beyond measure. He promised to do everything I wanted in exchange for the antidote and I took the chance. I demanded a safe way out of the planet, my payment and some things from their stash."

"What things?"

"I had a whole clan in my hand and I enjoyed the moment, they had a nice set of things I could use, such as different mixtures and substances."

He made a short impulse to set-up Rocket properly and kept walking.

"I was, of course, escorted by them the whole time. When I got to the ship I was using and started it, leaving the protection glass open. I grabbed a random vial from my coat and threw it as far as I could. They instantly grabbed their guns and started shooting at me, but somehow I was faster and left the planet without any further trouble."

Just as he finished his last sentence Rocket said: "Quite interesting… But why did you give them the antidote? I mean, they probably placed a bounty on your head after that, right?"

"Yes."

"So… As you described him, the Leader wasn't exactly an angel himself, killing him wouldn't be so bad, would it?"

"Indeed it wouldn't, but that's the funny part. I never injected him with poison."

"What?"

"Ever heard of Malesk?"

"The sauce?"

"Yes. I ended up filling a syringe with it and that was what I injected on his body. The vial I threw after leaving the planet, on the other hand…"

"So you were bluffing the whole time?"

"Absolutely, that guy wasn't even worth my weakest poison… But the thing they injected him with, the vial I threw, probably gave him the worst stomach ache he ever felt."

Rocket burst out laughing, but immediately regretted it, as he started coughing again. – "You son of a bitch… Boy, I would pay fifty thousand units to see his face!"

Daemon didn't answer, but left out a small smile with the corner of his mouth.

"But ho… Wait, stop."

Daemon stopped walking and looked back.

"What is it?"

"Something smells different around here… It feels…" – He sniffed the air. – "Metallic, I don't know…"

"Where is it coming from?"

"A bit up ahead."

"You think it's safe?"

Rocket thought for a second before saying: "I suppose… I just thought it was weird, since we're in the middle of fucking nowhere."

"I think I might have a guess on what it is." – And with that he continued his path. After a few minutes they reached clearing with a construction in the middle made purely of metal and a spaceship stationed close, both bearing the Nova Troops symbol.

"Who would say, Doc? I guess you ARE lucky after all."

"Indeed… I would have never imagined we would find a Nova Scout Post right here… Let's see if there is anyone inside and ask for comms to get in touch with the other Guardians."

They step into the clearing and got close to the door, Daemon tought it looked a little smaller from far away, but he didn't care. He slammed his fist three times against the door.

"Excuse me! We're with the Guardians of the Galaxy! We got separated from our group and are in need of supplies and a communicator!" – He looked to Rocket and thought for a second – "And some medical treatment too!"

They waited, but no answer came. The place was deadly quiet.

"Well… I guess the luck ends he…" – He was interrupted as the big metal door slowly started to slide open. – "Or not…"

From the hole, a Nova wearing his helmet stepped out.

"You're Guardians? What happened? How did you end up here?" – As he said that 3 more troops stepped out.

"Long story… but if you want a resume, the Signal you captured from the surface of the planet was coming from a teleporter… We don't know what it is intended for; all we know is that it was installed by a group of thugs. But I don't think it'll be bothering anymore, as it exploded during a fight we had against them. Both me and my friend here were teleported to another device on the mines, in which the Nova troops were…" – He hesitated

"Killed?" – A nova on the left of the leader asked with a serious face.

"Yes… Anyways, I'm Daemon, Daemon Pierce and this is Rocket." – He pointed at Rocket on his back, which answered with a growl. – "He's sick and has been wounded; we need some painkillers and a communicator to talk to our friends."

The Leader extended his hand and Daemon shook it.

"Nice to meet you both… I'm Mark; the others are Buck, Strafer and Retras." – He pointed to each one of the other Novas. – "I'll grab what you need inside, you mind waiting here for a moment?"

"Not at all, go on." – The leader nodded and went back inside, leaving them alone with his partners. They all smiled and retreated a bit.

"Excuse us for a moment…" – They stepped back and started talking amongst themselves.

Daemon also took a step back and whispered to his right shoulder, where Rocket's head was.

"You saw it?"

"Yes… Also, look at your left discreetly."

Daemon looked and saw what Rocket was talking about; there was something white and red sticking out of a bush…

A Nova armored foot with blood under it.

"They're disguised; this post has been taken…"

"So that means the leader went inside…"

"…to call reinforcements." – Daemon completed.

"Let's just blast their faces off…"

Daemon didn't object, instead he said: - "Wait for my signal."

Just after that the three disguised thugs came closer to them.

"Nice knife you got there… Where did you get it?" – He pointed at the knife that belonged to Prime, the thug they had killed back at the mines. Pierce assumed they knew him and recognized the short sword.

"Oh? This is just something I bought from a shop I've run into…"

"Really?" – He placed one hand at the pistol on his wrist. – "And what was the name of this store again?"

"Dead Body Looting. Now!" – He screamed and leaned forward in order to give a clean shot to Rocket that fired his pistols on the thugs standing on each side, Buck and Retras. Daemon then applied a kick on the remaining one on his stomach. The guy fell to his back and Rocket jumped from Daemon's back, a bit clumsily because of his leg, but managed to land on the thug's chest.

"Catch!" – Daemon threw a knife and Rocket grabbed it in the air, he rolled it downwards and lifted his hands, the knife's point facing down.

"No! How did you found out?! - Strafer asked panicking, but he couldn't take Rocket away from him.

"Tell your leader on the other life to remember to wash his stolen uniform, there was a blood stain on his wrist." – Rocket answered with a grin.

"What? No! That's not po…" - Strafer couldn't finish the phrase, as Rocket stabbed the knife on his right eye through the helmet, spilling blood everywhere.

"Fuck, I'm gonna' have a hard time washing this…" – The Raccoon said while standing up, looking at his jumpsuit now filled with red stains against the normal orange color.

"You'll worry about that later; right now we have to stop 'Mark' to call whoever he is calling… Can you walk?" – He kneeled and pulled his knife from the Thug's eye.

"Hell yeah… Let's move." – He flipped his pistols on his fingers. – "Let us put some bullets on a killer's head."

"That's the spirit." – Daemon cleaned the knife in his coat and held it firmly on his right hand, moving towards the open door.

Inside was dark, the windows had a type a glass that one could see the outside roughly, but another standing outside wouldn't be able to see what's inside. Nonetheless, the place was flooded by darkness. Rocket looked around and saw a switch on a wall and pointed it to Daemon, who moved it up and down, but nothing happened.

He whispered: - "You think he heard us?"

"There's no way to be sure, but I'd say it's very probable. They might have turned off the generators to surprise the Nova Troops inside. Still, keep your eyes peeled." – Rocket held his pistols tighter, fingers on the triggers.

They walked through the hallway as silently as they could. Eventually they reached a room with a computer on a corner. Attached to it was a data-pad. They got closer looking to both sides, but there was nobody to be seen.

Daemon took a step close to the computer and activated it, the device slowly powered up and the screen flashed on.

"What'ya think you're doing? We need to find that guy!"

"I know, I know. But this data-pad doesn't seem to belong to Nova Troops… I believe one of the thugs must have brought it."

"Right… And…?" – Rocket was obviously impatient.

"And that means it might contain information about what they are doing here." – He typed something on the keyboard and images started to appear.

"We… Core… All in place…" – The words coming from the screen could barely be heard, they could only pick up a few parts.

But the images were accurate.

"Damn it…" – Daemon looked at the screen with a troubled look.

"That ain't good… That ain't good at all." – Rocket said too.

"We need to call Peter, they can no…" – Pierce didn't finish as they both heard a sound coming from behind them.

Rocket turned instantly, but Mark was faster. The blaster shot hit him perfectly on his chest and he fell back, twitching while electrical sparks danced around his body.

Daemon didn't have time to say anything, as Mark instantly tried to shoot him too. He rolled to his side and threw a knife. It made a perfect arc and hit Mark right under his helmet, the place where it connected with the upper suit. Mark dropped his weapon and placed both hands in his neck, trying vainly to stop the bleeding. He fell to his knees and then to his side, convulsing as life slowly faded from his body.

Daemon was taking deep yet short breaths, adrenalin rushing through his body. As his mind became slightly clearer he realized what had happened.

"Fuck…" – He quickly ran to Rocket's side and grabbed him by his back. The raccoon was with wide-open eyes and wasn't breathing.

"No, no, no…" – He placed Rocket on the ground and ripped his jumpsuit top with his knife, exposing the creature's chest. Daemon pressed on and started CPR, pressing Rocket's with constant moves.

"Damn it Rocket, stay with me." – He continued for a whole minute, but Rocket wasn't responding, his body was still completely numb and lifeless.

Daemon sat back: - "Focus… focus… What do I need? C'mon…" – He thought to himself. His eyes searched the room and landed on Mark's body. Specifically at a small pocket in his armor.

"Adrenalin…" – Every Nova troop carried medications in their uniform, and adrenalin was a must. He quickly ran to it and rolled over the thug's body, checking the pockets for the thing he was looking for. Eventually he ran into an injection labeled "ADR" with red letters on its length.

Pierce went back to Rocket and injected the vial on his neck. Daemon resumed the CPR in order to make the substance flow through Rocket's body.

A whole minute passed.

Then two…

And Rocket still didn't react.

"C'mon! C'mon…" – His movements started slowing down… And eventually ceased.

Rocket was gone…

"No…" – He picked up the raccoon's inert body and placed his arms around him. Involving the Guardian's body in a protective position…

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry…" – He mumbled and held tighter, as his vision was getting blurry.

"I... I couldn't keep my promise… I'm sorry…" – He repeated that to himself a couple times, each time lower until it became only a whisper, echoing through the empty halls…

Alone…

"You mind releasing me? My chest is hurting…"

Daemon lifted his head and pushed Rocket away. He released his breath, which he didn't notice he was holding until then, and watched as the raccoon coughed a few times and shook his head lightly, blinking to regain focus.

"You bastard…" – He dropped Rocket slowly on his back, he was taking heavy breaths and his eyes were only slightly open. – "I thought you were gone…"

"Ain't gonna' be easy to take me down…" – Rocket left out a pain grump. - "But Wha'… Wha' exactly happened…?"

"You were shot… The blast stopped your heart… Man, you were dead…"

"That explains the cold…" – He showed a weak smile and coughed. – "I'm still… Dizzy." – And with that his eyes closed and his head tumbled to the side.

"Rocket?" – Daemon placed two fingers on his throat, and was relieved to feel a steady pulse. Rocket was breathing regularly in a peaceful sleep.

Daemon stood up and headed to the computer, accessing the communication channels. He simonized on the Milano's channel and waited.

Peter's face appeared on the screen.

"Nova Scout post #43? What's the ma…" – He hesitated as he recognized Pierce's face. – "Doc? The hell man, we've been worried sick…"

"Quill, there's no time. The thugs are planning to harvest the planet core directly, if they extract it too much, it'll go super-nova and blow half the quadrant. They used the teleporters to bring materials inside the Nova mines; there are more than 500 thugs inside them."

Quill frowned his face. – "Shit… If what you're saying is true then we'll definitely need reinforcements… We were on our way to contact Nova, left a few hours ago." – The rest of the Guardians appeared behind him – "But sit tight, we're coming to pick you up." – He started pressing some buttons.

"Stop, there's no time. Rocket's wounded and sick; he needs medical treatment and fast. We found out their plans through a data-pad and it also mentioned they installed a long-range person teleporter to bring more troops inside without Nova noticing. If I'm right, there's one in this Outpost. I'll use it to send Rocket to you." – He disappeared from the screen.

"Wait? What do you mean send Rocket?"

His answer came pretty fast, as a blue light emerged from inside the ship and slowly took form into the raccoon.

"Rocket!" – Gamora picked him up and placed a hand on his forehead. – "He's burning; I'll get him to the Medical Bay." – She left and Pierce reappeared on the screen.

"The hell you think you're doing?" – Quill asked with an angry face.

"The device only works when someone is operating it. I can't go…"

"We're not leaving you behind, fool."

"I'm afraid you are. And besides, I wouldn't go even if I could… They are close to succeeding and someone needs to stop it."

"You're crazy! You can't stop 500 thugs alone! We're coming back!"

"No Quill, you're not. I can't stop them, but I can slow them down. I'll head for the mines and do what I can… You call Nova and make sure they get here with enough strike force to fight them off."

"You're not doing anything alone, you hear me? We're a team and nobody gets left behind! You stay right where you are, that's an order!"

"Goodbye Quill…" – He pressed something on the panel and the screen went black.

"Damn it, that stubborn idiot!" – Quill slammed his fist against the wall.

"Set course back, friend Quill?" – Drax asked, taking a step forward.

Quill thought for a second.

"No… Despite I hate admitting it, he's right… Our chances are better if we call Nova and get Rocket taken care of. He's on his own…"

Daemon looked as the screen turned black and leaned against the keyboard. He knew his chances were minimal, but he wouldn't put anyone in risk again… He would do what he had to.

He stored his knifes and grabbed whatever he could from the outpost. And then turned towards the door…

He had a job to do…


	7. Showdown

**Hey guys! Well, it's sad to say we've reached the last chapter… I hope you have enjoyed it so far. It was quite fun to write this, since I had never done a fanfiction before, thanks for all the support everyone has given me along the way. ;)**

**Most of this chapter is focused on Daemon, and I'm sorry about that since the other Guardians won't appear for about 3k words. Still, I hope the ending pleases you all! Enjoy!**

Daemon started the Nova-ship's engine by pressing the throttle forward. The panel slowly gained life as all the buttons assumed patterns of blue, yellow and red.

He leaned back against his seat and rested his head against his left hand. An old habit he had gotten from his past…

His mind was rushing through the many possibilities and manners he could use to accomplish the task ahead. Many thoughts were spinning as he tried to guess what he would encounter, the situations being created in the most detailed ways, shapes and forms.

But none of them seemed to end well…

The frustration had already taken a small control over him, and panic was looking for his share. Daemon was a person that planned everything, he could form thousands of manners of countering the problems or, if some different situation happened, quickly adapt in order for things to turn the way he wished for. But that was entirely different. Four or five heavily armed and armored thugs weren't really a challenge for him. But 500 surely were.

Back at the time when he slaughtered the whole Burst gang he had used the ventilation system to dilute a poison that attacked the nervous system, rendering the person disorientated, confused and, in most situations, harmless. After he was sure everyone inside the hideout was affected he got in and finished them all. How much were they? Blinded by anger, he didn't even count. The memories almost made him vomit.

The same strategy wouldn't work, he was sure about that. He pressed the ship's flight controls and it slowly lifted itself, setting the coordinates to the mines right after. He was pressed against the chair when the engines did their job, increasing the speed in a fixed rate. Daemon would guess 3 hours from where he was to the mines, considering his speed.

"Great, lot of time to regret my choice…" – He thought to himself, even though it wasn't true. He didn't regret it at all. Gamora could be trusted when it came to taking care of wounds and diseases. She wasn't a medic, but had probably learned a thing or two when she was with Thanos, therefore he knew Rocket was in good hands. He wasn't entirely sure she would be able to neutralize the disease, but could slow it down considerably.

The main problem, on the other hand, was him.

He accessed the ship's database, the Nova Core files, and looked for a map or anything he could use inside the mines. Fortunately, there was one. Diagrams and waypoints appeared as he pressed the virtual buttons and checked part by part of the maps. According to the paths, the mine had a way straight down to half the way of the planet's core and then finished in a very large digging site, where nova was expanding sideways in order not to compromise the planet's core. The thug's files said something about a large digging machine to reach even deeper, so he guessed they had probably dug a bit more. Somehow he would have to find his own way after reaching the site and shutting down the machine…

…Or just blowing it to the core.

That lightened him a bit. It wasn't actually a plan, lot of improvisation involved… But it was something.

He decided to pick up the bag with the things he had gotten from the Nova outpost and did a quick organization. He had a few things he could mix to create different types of medicine and a few poisons, of course. Beyond that, some needles, a few scalpels he could use to throw when his knifes ran out, bandages in general and a few gauzes too. He doubted he would use these last two things… The thugs would hardly let him live long enough to patch himself up. But, like he enjoyed saying: "You never know".

There was also some of the beast's meat inside the bag he had wrapped up in some leaves. He decided to eat it all, since it wasn't that bad. Wasting food when he was about to face death wasn't in his plans.

It tasted sweeter than he remembered, probably because of the leaves. The weirdest was it still didn't taste bad. If he'd make it we would absolutely ask Nova which animal was that, he would totally want to eat it again.

He thought about Quill and the rest of the Guardians… The things he would give to be eating and drinking with them inside the Milano, enjoying Peter's song while Groot was dancing in his pot, Rocket and Drax hitting their glasses and Gamora laughing softly behind them. He missed them.

He shook his head to get clean of the sentiments, letting those things get in the way wasn't a good idea.

Pierce decided to rest for a while; he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, as the ship followed its course.

The ship arrived at the mines in about 3 hours and a half, close to the time Daemon had anticipated. His sleep was rather troubled, but it was enough.

He landed it a bit far from the mines clearing, in case there were any scouts patrolling the perimeter. His careful proved useful, as there were 3 guards on the entrance, taking watch and armed with large laser cannons.

Daemon could easily see they weren't experienced at all. Their position was relaxed, one of them was holding the gun the wrong way and the last one wasn't even standing. He was sitting against the rock wall and his rifle was only a few feet from him, also leaned against the wall.

He went through the woods in order to stay on their left, the position he thought he could reach out for them without being seen, using the rocks as cover. He silently crossed the distance until he was only a few meters from the door. He grabbed a rock from the ground and threw it as far as he could. It hit a tree with and audible crack sound, as the edge of the bark snapped in two.

One of them turned his head to the noise and Daemon heard them saying:

"The hell was that?" – The one sitting down asked.

"Probably just some stupid animal walking around the woods, nothing to worry about." – The other one answered.

"I don't know… What if it's something? Boss would hate if we let anyone that it's not authorized get in."

"Then go and check it fucker, you're the one that's been sitting your ass down since we got here." – He opened his helmet protection and spit on the ground. – "If you die, then we'll know that there's something wrong."

"Fine, I get it. I'll check it out." – He got up and grabbed his rifle. Daemon smiled as the other followed him, despite their argument.

"See? Nothing! I told you so."

"Okay, okay. I was wrong. Cease your whining."

They started walking back, expecting the whole day to be still and boring.

But they found their companion's body lying on a blood pool.

"Damn it! We got an intruder! We need to go after him! He's probably already inside!" – The thug closed his helmet again and starting making a run to the door.

"But how did he manage to enter if the door needs a code? What if he's still outside?"

"Who cares? If Boss find's out were dead! Besides, you see anyone around?" – His companion looked around and shook his head sideways. – "I'm coming in." – He typed the numbers on the panel and the door made a steam noise and burst open. The thug pointed his gun at the dark and started walking in, his friend following him behind.

"Come out nicely and maybe, just MAYBE we won't burst your chest open." – He threatened; paying attention to anything he might hear or see.

"You know, you should listen to your friends sometimes. I was still outside."

He turned and instantly shot, but he hit the other thug, as Daemon used it as a body shield. The lazy thug was already dead, but the guy still felt horrible. Suddenly Daemon threw the body on top of him, he dodged and pointed his gun again, but the doctor was already close to him. Pierce pushed the gun away with one hand and stabbed him on his stomach, making an uppercut movement and slicing through armor, flesh and bones. The thug fell to the ground and twitched a few times before finally staying dead.

Daemon cleaned his knife with a small swing and looked forward. The tunnel was only barely illuminated with weak ion torches, descending in a diagonal shape just like he saw on the map. It went down as far as he could see, and there were no more guards ahead.

Pierce started his way down, holding two knives firmly on both hands. The walk proved to be quite calm as there was nobody to be seen. All he could hear were his footsteps echoing across the dirt walls and it was driving him mad. The feeling of the lack of air was awful.

After about 30 minutes of walking he started hearing voices and slowed down, he sticked to the walls and to the shadows as much as he could before he reached the mining site.

It was huge, the ceiling was about 700m tall, and the sides extended as far as one's eyes could see. It was clearly excavated with laser drills, as some rocks were obviously burnt. The site was illuminated by huge lamps flaring with a white light. Daemon looked in front and realized there was more thugs than he could count, all of them bearing guns and heavy armor. Some looked like engineers or tech-experts, but most were clearly soldiers. The place was really agitated, they were carrying crates, some were carrying large yellow batteries, tubes and wires of all types were scattered around the ground. Daemon noticed some were larger than the others and headed straight to the other side of the cave, he noticed instantly they were connected to the device the gang was using to extract the resources, and the yellow batteries were charged with it.

"They already started…" – He thought to himself.

There was no way he could get across without getting seen or, more accurately, shot. A strategy was needed, and fast. Thinking like this it seemed impossible. How could one cross 200m of a cave flooded with killers?

Daemon looked around to gather his possibilities. Disguise as one of them? No, if confronted he wouldn't know what to say. Maybe slicing his way with his knifes like it's the fucking year's eve? Too heroic, too risky, too bad…He was getting frustrated; this was harder than he thought… He looked up from his cover trying to think of a solution and got enlightened, literally.

"The lights… Of course." – He thought. The cave's only light source was coming from the lamps above; if he could disable them it would be easy to push everyone aside and cross it out easily. Giving a deeper look, he took notice of giant wires attached to a panel on the wall, very close to him fortunately. Analyzing the buttons he saw an "Emergency Power-Cut" written in red letters on top of a big button covered by a glass. That was actually a start of bad luck, since he couldn't throw a knife and get enough strength to push the button from distance. He would have to activate it manually.

Standing in his way there were some crates filled with electrical wires and stuff, about 5 thugs and a small crane. The panel was on a wall, just slightly above him in a wire catwalk He pictured the route and got ready.

"Well… You only live once." – He said and took his first step. Running as fast as he could

At first things went out easily, but then his heart froze when he heard someone say:

"Hey! Who are you?" – followed by the unmistakable sound of a gun being drawn.

The shots came right after, he duck, jumped and dodged as much as he could until he met the 5 thugs that he saw just now, aiming at him with their large rifles.

"Stop it or we will open fi…" – The one that shouted wasn't able to finish his threat, he felt an alarming pain coming from his forehead and before he could take notice of what it was, everything turned black and he tumbled backwards. His companions looked in shock as a large sword was sticking out right in the center of his head, just above the eyes. They took some time to recompose themselves and that gave Daemon time to kill 3 more, one remained though and managed to take a shot before Pierce stabbed him right under his chin. He continued running but his arm was burning slightly, he looked to it and saw a burnt part of his coat and a bit of his skin. The shot had not hit him directly, but even the scratch was already hurting. On a second look he saw most shots went close to him, his clothes were slightly damaged because of that. Despite the pain he used the small crane as an impulse, rolled over the catwalk's protection and smashed the button with the side of his fist.

Everything went dark inside and someone shouted from the crowd:

"Cease fire, you idiots! You'll end up hitting each other!" – The voice gave Daemon a shiver that went down his spine; somehow that voice was different from the rest. More cruel, deadly, smart and professional.

He didn't stick around to find out who it belonged to, he jumped from the catwalk using his memory to locate around the place. He pushed and knocked over a lot of things in his path, but in the dark nobody realized what was going on. He quickly overcame the distance and entered the door on the end of the cave, not stopping after reaching it and diving through tunnels filled with cables. After some time he stopped to regain his breath and look around. He had done it; he was in the part of the mines the thugs built themselves. To his left there was a window, in the rush he hadn't notice it, but what it had was quite impressive. It was another giant excavation cave with a giant hole and in the middle. In the middle of the hole there stood a machine with pumps connected straight down. Judging by the yellow light Daemon assumed it was the harvesting device. It was sending a laser straight down and yellow energy climbed from the pumps and directed to an attachment on the wall. The whole cave was made of earth, but the compound he was in was made of metal. Following the cable he noticed a control room on the other side of the cave. Considering the facility had a circular shape he would have to go around it to reach the room.

He was about to start walking when he heard footsteps coming from where he had come from.

"He tricked us; he's headed for the control room. Find him and take him out." – It was the same voice that had screamed earlier.

Daemon couldn't run or they would hear him too. He had to figure out a way of taking the thugs down and fast.

His eyes searched the corridor and spotted a metal tank entitled "Liquid Nitrogen".

"Perfect" – He thought with a smile.

He quickly ran behind it and started pushing it, the steps and screams were getting louder every second. By the time a thug appeared from the corner he managed to knock it over, rolling through the hallway and hitting one of them in the feet. He quickly threw a knife while rolling back and the tank exploded, filling the ambient with a white-cold smoke. Pierce regained his breath as he heard the shades inside the smoke scream, while the cold embraced them and stopped their vitals quickly.

After a few moments everything went silent. In exception for his breath, Daemon couldn't hear a thing. He took a last glance at the smoke and saw something black stand up inside it. He thought someone had survived, but that was impossible. Even inside their armors the cold would be enough to at least damage them permanently. The figure made a movement, like it had turned and lifted something with its hand.

Daemon almost didn't notice it in time.

He took another step back as a harpoon flew and hit the wall just where his head was seconds before. He looked at it and then looked back at the figure; it stepped out from the smoke slowly, pointing a large gun similar to a pistol. In the barrel was loaded another harpoon, identical to the one he had just shot.

Slowly the thug stepped out completely from the nitrogen, still dripping ice from his armor, which was something Daemon had never seen before.

The man was wearing a mask with red eyes, similar to Peter's. His body armor was black and gray, tubes and wires were connected to different parts along its extension. The junctions also had thick wires on them. The whole thing basically looked very technologic and powerful, maybe something even beyond that.

He pressed a button in his neck and the mask retracted, making a black collar and exposing the man's face. It was covered with scars and markings; one of his eyes was completely white.

"Clever, using nitrogen." – His voice was the one that was leading the now dead thugs, and then Daemon realized who he was: "The Boss" all the thugs mentioned. Pierce could easily tell why everyone was so afraid of him. – "It's rather impressive you managed to reach so far, considering the situation. But you killed some of my men, and you'll pay for that." – He moved his finger to the trigger menacingly.

"Thanks, I suppose. But dying isn't really in my plans, sorry about that." – The Boss took the shot and Daemon threw a knife back. The harpoon shaved through the upper side of his arm, but the knife hit the thug in the chest and bounced back, useless.

Daemon kneeled as the wound started burning slightly, it had instantly acquired a red pattern and was slightly bloated. But only for a few seconds, it slowly went back to normal leaving only the bleeding wound.

The Boss seemed surprised: - "Immune? That's new. I've never met anyone who survived more than a minute with the poison on their blood stream. Fascinating…"

Daemon gave him a short grin and stood up: - "For someone that is stealing resources from a planet, you're very polite." – He spun, throwing another knife. The thug simply grabbed it with the hand that wasn't holding the harpoon pistol.

"What does it matter? You'll be dead anyways." – He pressed a button on the side of the pistol and another harpoon took the place of the last one in the gun; he aimed again.

Daemon had no chance against him; The Boss was immune to whatever he could throw at him. He decided to make a run for the control room and turned to run. The thug took another shot that also didn't pierce him for a few inches, this one scratched his cheek. He tumbled while running, but managed to keep the step. He heard the sound of the thug's gun being loaded again. The Boss reactivated his mask and went after him.

Pierce managed to run a few meters, with the Boss shooting behind him. Some would hit him and some wouldn't, but with each shot he could feel himself slowing down. He eventually reached another hallway filled with pipes and tubes on the walls, on top of it there was a sign on top of it written "Control Room" with an opening at the end, showing some panels and a faint light. He turned and went inside, making a run for it.

"Almost there… Just a few more steps." - He thought.

Suddenly he tripped when a pain went through his calf. Another shot from The Boss had torn a piece of his pants and took a small amount of flesh with it. He used the pipes to stand up and looked back; The Boss was only a few steps behind him.

"Let's quit this Tag game, shall we?" – He loaded the gun.

Daemon's breath was heavy and his vision was rather blurry, but something on the wall draws his attention. One of the pipes was having a small leak, and close to it written in small letters along its length was "Nitromethane – G", just beside his enemy. He picked up a knife from his belt and held it firmly. He aimed carefully and threw it.

The Boss dodged it easily, going to the opposite side as the knife pinned on the wall.

"You missed." – He lifted his gun, ready to take the shot.

Daemon laughed softly: - "Want to know another thing about me? I never miss." – He turned his head as the pipes burst, a grey smoke filled the hallway and the burst got the Boss unprepared. Daemon didn't wait to know what happened to him, he turned and walked slowly inside the control room. Through the window he could see the device, still pumping resources from the planet's core. He took a look at the panel and his heart froze.

It wasn't like anything he had seen before; he had no idea what he could press stop the machine or even how to destroy it. He started pressing and pulling random buttons and levers but nothing happened. The panels were blinking with a language he didn't understand. The only thing he could actually have a clue what it was for was a glass with a red needle inside written "Pressure" on top of it. He took a step back and sighed. That was it, the thugs would end up finding him inside and he wouldn't be able to do a single thing about it.

He looked around the walls, also filled with tubes, wires, panels and pipes and got an idea. He checked the insides of this coat and his belt and counted his knives. He still had 10. Mostly he would retrieve all the ones he had shot, but along the way he didn't have the opportunity to do so, since he was very busy running for his life.

He took another step back, standing right in the middle of the room; Daemon opened his coat slightly to expose the knives and took a deep breath.

He started with one, then two at a time quickly. Knives were flying around the room and hitting every corner of the place. Sparks and electricity danced as everything started heating up and an alarm echoed in the facility. He ran out pretty quickly, but kept one knife with him. Looking around the room, he noticed he had damaged the system pretty good. He stepped close to the panels again and gave a look at the pressure measurer, it was slightly broken with the heat, but the needle was way beyond the maximum capacity. Looking through the screen he saw the yellow energy stop flowing and the machine showing blue sparks around it. He smiled and felt better, everything was going okay. He had surely delayed the thugs, he…

Daemon's vision grayed out slightly and he fell forward slightly, leaning against the panel. He noticed with a bit of surprise he had stopped breathing, he inspired air but it was hard… Every breath was heavy and with it came an excruciating pain. He looked down to the panel filled with a red liquid. Pierce thought it was odd, he hadn't seen anything red around the room. Then he looked a little more down and felt nauseous.

There was a silver harpoon going through the left side of his body.

He fell to his knees again, pressing the wound but his hands were weak. He tumbled and turned around; sitting leaned against the panel's bottom and barely conscious. His eyes were only slightly open, and his body was shaking. Daemon watched as the red eyes from the Boss emerged from the hallway, he was dripping a colorless liquid and holding his gun in his left hand.

The Boss retracted his mask and widened his eyes, filled with anger. He started using the panel, ignoring Daemon bleeding out on his feet.

"You motherfucker… Look at what you have done! It'll take months to repair this damage!" – He slammed his fist against the blinking lights and retreated, looking at Daemon with his white eye, obviously filled with anger. He pointed his gun at Pierce's forehead.

"You should have just surrendered, now I'll make sure you burn inside the flames of hell." – He placed his finger on the trigger.

Daemon was dazed because of the pain, but the words were pretty clear. He started laughing softly, then a bit more loudly despite every inch of his body telling him not to.

"What's the joke, funny boy?" – The Boss asked.

Daemon spoke with pauses, taking deep breaths between his words: "Did… You know…" – He coughed – "That Nitromethane… is highly flammable?"

The Bosses' eyes widened open as he realized what Daemon had just said.

Daemon took his last knife and scratched it on the ground close to the liquid that had dripped and formed a pool around the Boss. The spark was enough to start the combustion and the whole armor lighted itself with a bright red and yellow light. The Boss screamed in panic and tumbled back to the hallway. The flames ignited the remaining smoke and exploded with a loud 'boom'. The screams stopped.

Daemon coughed real hard, he could feel his blood dripping on the floor. His consciousness was barely attached to him… With blurry vision he stared at the hallway, now filled with smoke and fire, and starting taking notes of all the things he was feeling: Fear, anger, panic… and pain. He would miss the Guardians, but he was happy to realize he had done his part. Slowing the thugs down was his objective and he had reached it. He would go in peace... his only last wish was it ended faster, being a doctor he knew it would take some time until he finally died from the bleeding.

Like his prays were answered, red eyes flashed from inside the fire and started getting close to him. He closed his eyes, thankful and waited for the eventual loss of consciousness.

But it never came; instead he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"You stupid asshole…"

Daemon opened his eyes again slowly, and saw Quill's mask floating on top of him.

"Hey Quill… Am I dead yet?"

Star-lord pressed a button on his mask and it faded, showing his concerned face.

"Not yet you pessimistic motherfucker… C'mon, let's get you out of here." – He pushed Daemon's arm around his neck and placed his own around the doctor's hips and lifted him up. When they got up Daemon noticed Quill was carrying his bag. Pierce gave out a loud pain grumble, followed by a sarcastic laugh.

"I need some vacations..." – Quill smiled at his words while carrying him through the hallway.

"I'll make sure you get the best vacations ever after this, but only if you stay with me right now."

Daemon smiled back, but was feeling too weak to answer. They walked back to the underground mining site, and Daemon was already asking himself how they would face all the thugs and how did Quill got there in the first place. But the site was empty. He could hear screams and other sounds coming from the hole he had come from.

"Nova engaged all the thugs and they went to defend their ground, I managed to go around in order to find you. All of the Guardians are fighting as well…" – Quill explained.

"Rocket…" – Daemon mumbled, too shaken to say anything else.

Peter frowned his eyebrows: - "Gamora gave him some painkillers and some extra medication, didn't cure whatever he had completely though. I told him he was in no position to fight but he insisted, said he wouldn't leave, and his words here, 'that stupid fucker behind'. That idiot is as stubborn as a brick wall… He's piloting the Milano and helping the Nova ships."

They reached the site's entrance and Quill turned to a small transporter, similar to a car, on a corner. He helped Daemon in the seat, who hissed in pain the whole process, but finally managed to sit inside. Quill took the controls and the transporter slowly started climbing at a pretty fast speed. By the time they reached the cave's entrance Daemon could hear clearly the fight sounds, screams and blasters shooting, and see them too. The Thugs were scattered around the place, trying to cover from the Nova ships attacks. Daemon saw the Milano flying around as well. Quill got down from the car and again helped him off but this time he couldn't hold it, he screamed loudly in pain and asked Peter to put him down, lying against the wall. Quill hesitated but complied.

"Let's have a look at this…" – He said pointing to the harpoon. He pulled the coat away taking a look at the wound, it was bleeding heavily. Daemon also looked down and took a deep breath.

"Quill, listen carefully…"

Quill lifted his head in surprise and looked straight at Pierce's eyes.

"I've lost too much blood already, I'm probably going to…" – He coughed – "… faint in the matter of minutes. You need to remove the harpoon."

"Right here?! You're crazy! We need to get you to the Milano's Med-bay!" – He pressed his communicator button at his ear, but Pierce interrupted.

"There's no time… Listen." – A short pause. – "You got my bag?"

Quill looked to the bag on his shoulder and pulled it off. – "Yeah, it's here."

"Inside… There's an injection labeled 'HS', white vial, green stripes. Grab it."

Quill started searching the bag and after a few seconds he took out the injection from it, he rolled it around in his hands and took the needle's protection off.

"What does it do?" – He asked.

"It'll stop my heart…"

Quill looked at him wide-eyed.

"No way! I'm not letting you commit suicide, you moron!"

Daemon laughed softly between his coughs. – "It's not permanent you idiot, it'll reduce my heartbeats to only 1 beat-per-minute. Preventing the rest of my blood to drip off when you take the harpoon out."

Quill calmed down a bit but still protested: - "It still looks risky, are you sure about that?"

"I am, it's my only chance. When you take it out you'll need to stop the hemorrhage. Press the wound and wrap it around with bandages tightly…"

"Ok" – Quill picked up all the things he would use from inside the bag and placed them on the ground, making sure nothing was missing.

"Okay, you're ready?" He held the injection between his fingers.

"I'll never be… Just do it." – Came the answer.

Quill nodded and pressed the needle against Daemon's exposed arm and waited. Pierce starting panicking as a cold sensation starting embracing him, but he contained it. Quill placed both hands on the exposed part of the harpoon. He took a deep breath.

"Don't die on me..." – He said and that was the last thing Daemon heard before his world exploded in pain and darkness.

Rocket opened his eyes and blinked a few times, the light was faint but it still made him stagger. He got up in a sitting position and noticed a blanket covering him; he wasn't using his jumpsuit and immediately felt unprotected, realizing he was naked under the covers. Behind him was a large white pillow a bit sunken where his head was standing. Suddenly Rocket's stomach grumbled and he placed a hand on it, the small Guardian felt like he hadn't eaten for days. But something else drew his attention, a small pinch in his arm when he moved. He looked at it slowly.

His elbow was completely wrapped in a bandage and a wire with a transparent liquid was coming out from it, attached to a serum bag hanging in a hook of a rack.

Rocket's eyes widened and his head moved fast. – "No, no…" – He thought. The back of his right hand was slightly shaved and a wire connected to a heart-rate monitor was coming out of it. He watched the monitor, pulsing with a green straight line going up and down every few seconds and the numbers right beside it. He started hyperventilating and the beeping sound coming turned faster; Rocket heard a movement from his left and looked to it. His surroundings were completely blocked by a greyish curtain held by a screen, a hand appeared and grabbed the edge of it from outside, Rocket left out a small whimper he didn't mean to release as the curtain slid open with a shrill noise and revealed Peter's face.

"Rocket! You're awake!" - Quill quickly pulled a chair closer to the bed and lifted both hands beside his head. – "It's okay, I'm not gonna' hurt you." – Said, as he noticed Rocket was rather alarmed. And not only that, he was also confused. He wasn't expecting Quill at all.

"Wha'... Quill? The hell, you almost scared the shit out of me!" – He said a bit louder than he intended to. Quill placed a hand on the raccoon's chest and pushed him down, making him lie again.

"I'm sorry about that, don't push too hard." – He left out a small tranquilizing smile.

"Where… the heck am I?" – Rocket asked looking straight to his friend's eyes with a questioning face.

"You're safe. We're in the Milano's Medbay, stationed in a Nova Carrier ship. You fainted shortly after the fight back at Merged – Z, that disease took you down pretty good."

Rocket blinked as the memories slowly returned to him. How Pierce sent him through the teleporter, Gamora treating him, the fight at the mining site and his landing… Then everything went black.

"How lon' have I been asleep?"

"About 2 days." – Quill answered.

Rocket's mouth opened slightly before he said: - "2 days? You've got to be kidding me…" – His stomach grumbled again and he looked down. – "I'm hungry…"

Peter stood up from the chair – "Hang on." – He stepped back and Rocket saw him picking up a tray from a balcony and returning shortly after. He pushed Rocket's pillow up as the Raccoon shifted to a leaned back position and Peter placed the tray in his lap. It was filled with all sorts of Rocket's favorite un-healthy food.

"Oh, and I got you this." – He pulled a liquor bottle from his red coat and handed it to Rocket. – "I thought you would be thirsty too." – He blinked one eye to him.

Rocket grinned to him and unscrewed the bottle's lid, drinking most of the content inside. He pushed the bottle away from his mouth and sighed, cleaning the edge of his snout. – "Thanks…" – He returned the alcohol bottle to Quill.

"Nothing like alcohol to cheer up, huh?" – Quill smiled and Rocket nodded back at him smiling too.

He looked at his food and started chewing on it, his hunger making him look more animalistic than he wanted too, but his stomach was hurting too much for him to care. When he finished Quill picked up the tray and put it aside. Rocket thanked him again, feeling satisfied despite something bothering him at the depths of his mind.

"Quill, where's Pierce?"

Peter looked at him and took some time before answering:

"When I got up to him he was hurt pretty badly, some guy shot a harpoon through his kidney, but he's fine now. The first thing he did after coming back to the Milano was treat your sickness and your leg."

Rocket grumped, even fucked up the guy was taking care of him.

"Where's he now?"

"Last time I saw him he was arguing with another doctor from the Nova troops, about an hour ago… Not sure where he is right now… Probably sleeping, recovering from his wounds. You want me to call him?" – Quill asked, he was rather surprised by the change of their relationship, Rocket and Pierce, but he didn't mention it. Whatever it happened back at the Planet was their call.

"No… I'm fine. What were they discussing about?" – Pierce hardly argued with anyone, so that was quite a surprise to Rocket.

"Well…" – Quill hesitated.

"C'mon Quill, spit it out."

"Well… You see… The Nova doctors wanted to run some more tests in you, aside the ones Daemon had already did." – Rocket's eyebrow lifted slightly – "He only did the X-ray of your leg and a blood test, but the Nova doctors wanted to go a bit more detailed, something about Ultra-sounds and other things. But Pierce didn't let them; he said he wouldn't allow them to test you anything beyond what you really needed, that it was a privacy invasion or something like that."

Rocket looked down at the blanket's volume where his broken leg was, it was a bit taller than the other. When he tried to move he felt it was immobilized, probably with a plaster. The reason for Pierce denying the other tests in him was a clear show that he knew Rocket would feel uncomfortable with it; he wouldn't like to be touched in his sleep at all.

"He stood up for me?"

"I guess he did…" – Quill thought for a second – "What happened to you back at Merged?"

Rocket obviously avoided the question: - "Nothing at all, I still don't like him." – He turned his face away from Quill. A very obvious sign that he was lying, but Quill let him alone.

"Well, the good news is that all the thugs were arrested and the planet is not endangered anymore. The Nova Prime came in person to thanks us again."

Rocket smiled – "Good thing she did, I got pretty fucked up. Tell me what happened after I passed out."

Peter smiled back – "Sure…"

They talked for about an hour, laughed around random things and enjoyed the moment. Then Quill decided Rocket still needed some rest and left him alone. The Guardian was still a bit uncomfortable staying in the medbay, but Quill assured him he was safe.

Needless to say Rocket left the place the first opportunity, his recovering happened pretty fast thanks to Daemon's treatment and the routine was restored, everything slowly went back to normal.

Not all of them though…

Rocket awoke startled from his bed, his breath accelerated.

"Great, another one." – He thought and scratched his eyes with his hands as imagine flashes were still floating through his mind. He absolutely hated nightmares…

"Groot…" – He called and looked at the tree-man, attached with vines to the wall in a corner. Both shared the same room, mostly because Groot wasn't really one to take a lot space, he didn't needed anything at all which left Rocket with the mission to fill the room with his stuff. He had a workbench, some gun's stocked at a corner and a few clothes inside a small closet. He looked at Groot, the tree-man was breathing slowly in a peaceful sleep, which made Rocket decide not to wake him up. It wasn't fair to bother him with just some stupid bad-dreams…

He lied in his bed again, trying to sleep again but he was afraid to… He wouldn't admit it, but the last thing he wanted was to fall asleep and return to his past. He turned and looked at the ceiling, thinking random things but the will to sleep wasn't coming at all. The Guardian sighed and got up, grabbed his pillow and blanket and exited his quarters; maybe sitting at the cockpit for a while would calm him down…

He walked through the silent and dark hallways and passed in front of Gamora's room, the door was slightly open and he took a glance at the alien woman, sleeping with a hand under his pillow… Holding her knife, he assumed. He also walked by Peter's and Draxes' rooms, the first one snoring like a pig and the other resting quietly on his large right shoulder. He made his way to the cockpit and was surprised that there was already someone in it.

"Hey…" – He said and Daemon turned his head, letting out a small smile.

"Hey… Troubled sleep?" – He asked back.

"Pretty much… You?"

"Same." – He turned his head again to face the emptiness of space.

Rocket walked to his chair on the opposite side of where Pierce was sitting, placing the pillow on his back and covering himself with the blanket. Daemon wasn't using his coat, so his arms were exposed, they were still wrapped in bandages and Rocket also noticed, as the Doctor's shirt was slightly lifted because of the position he was in, his lower body was covered in bandages with faint red stains. He also looked through the window and both stood like this for a while, before Rocket broke the silence.

"Why do you even care?"

Daemon looked at him. – "Pardon?"

"Back at Merged… You saved my life more than one time and helped me even when I wouldn't have done the same for you, why?"

Daemon looked at the raccoon for a while and then turned back to the window, thinking of what he would answer.

"To be honest, I don't know… I guess that, even if you don't like me or consider me as your friend, I still do have these considerations for you." – He made a short pause – "When we formed our group, the Guardians I mean, I was quite unsure about how it would turn out. But eventually the bonds we formed along our times together were something I didn't have for a long time… I made a promise to myself that nobody else would die while I was the one taking care of him or her. No matter if the person would do the same for me or not…"

Rocket took some time to think about what the Doctor just said, something about that 'nobody else' was odd, but he didn't mention it… Maybe he had misjudged the Doctor because of things from his past; it wasn't fair to blame Daemon on what happened to him. Quill's words returned to his mind: - "Are you sure you're not letting your past blur your vision?" – He sighed. Maybe he was right the whole time…

"Sorry about the things I've said before, you didn't deserve them…"

Daemon didn't turn his head, but answered: - "It's okay… I understand."

The silence that followed was rather awkward, but Rocket didn't mind. Somehow he felt he wouldn't be able to pick the words properly if they started talking. He was feeling rather tired to think about those things, but the sleep just wouldn't come.

"Back at the forest…"

Pierce looked at him.

"… you sang a song. What was it?" – Rocket was a bit embarrassed to ask, but somehow managed to find the courage for it.

Pierce smiled. – "It was something my Mother used to sing to me when I was just a kid… It's called 'The Sound of Silence', and old Terran lullaby I'd guess."

"Your mother?" – Rocket was rather surprised.

"Yeah…" – The word sounded like Daemon wasn't really in the mood for talking about that, so Rocket let it be. He would have never thought the Doctor once had a family. Suddenly he had an Idea for his troubled sleep.

"Could you…" – He stopped in the middle of the phrase. Daemon turned his head to him curiously.

"Could I…?" – He asked and waited.

"Never mind, it was stupid."

"Go on, we're alone in here anyway. No need to be afraid."

"I'm not afraid!" – He growled and then sighed – "The song… Could you… sing it again?"

Daemon was surprised with the request, but he quickly recovered.

"Sure…" – He said and closed his eyes, as the words slowly started connecting themselves on his mind and the song lyrics were formed. He opened his mouth and started:

"_Hello darkness, my old friend. _

_I've come to talk with you again…_

_Because a vision softly creeping, _

_Left its seeds while I was sleeping._

_And the vision that was planted in my brain _

_Still remains within the sound of silence._

_In restless dreams I walked alone_

_Narrow streets of cobblestone_

_'__Neath the halo of a street lamp_

_I turned my collar to the cold and damp_

_When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light_

_That split the night_

_And touched the sound of silence…"_

Rocket closed his eyes as the melody filled his ears, the words entering his mind and slowly calming down every inch of his body. Slowly he started feeling dazed and before he could notice, his whole world fell into a dreamless sleep…

**And that's it, ladies and gentleman! This is the end of my first fanfiction! Again, I hope you have enjoyed it and if you did, please leave a comment/review at the end. I would be very happy to hear your feedback concerning this story. Thanks for the support!**

**- Darkraven3441**


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